Finding a good deal on a prebuilt gaming PC isn't easy these days, especially with the ongoing global memory crisis. But what are the chances of stumbling across an unbeatable deal while you're out shopping for rotisserie chicken? Well, that's exactly what happened to one lucky Costco shopper, who walked away with a heavily discounted iBuyPower gaming PC for $1,140, down from its original price of $1,899.99. Now that’s a true winner winner, chicken dinner.

According to their post on the PC Master Race subreddit thread, u/klcp20 stumbled on one of the last display units at Costco during their weekly groceries run. While display units are generally sold at a discount to free up showroom space, buyers should keep in mind that such systems may have been on display for months and could be missing some accessories.

snagged a costco display unit couple of weeks ago from r/pcmasterrace

As per the shared spec sheet, the iBuyPower prebuilt PC includes an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which is rated as one of the best gaming CPUs that you can purchase today. Other components include 32GB of DDR5 memory, a 2TB SSD, and an Nvidia RTX 5070 graphics card with 12GB of VRAM.

The system also comes with an AIO liquid cooler, a keyboard and mouse combo, and a copy of Windows 11, making it a well-rounded gaming PC for modern AAA games at 1440p and even some 4K gaming with the right settings. The buyer also notes that they plan to swap the included power supply, suggesting they aren't entirely confident in its quality.

Such deals don't come around often, but this also isn't the first time a display PC has been sold at a massive discount. Just a few months ago, another Costco shopper reportedly picked up what seems to be the exact same iBuyPower prebuilt gaming PC for $1,000, down from its original retail price of $1,899.99.

It is important to note that such discounts are largely dependent on individual stores and their inventory. We highly suggest keeping an eye on display units and limited-period discounts, especially at big-box retailers. If you're already making a trip for groceries, it might be worth taking a quick detour through the electronics section.

When the Steam Machine was first unveiled, aesthetic customization was one of its biggest talking points beyond the hardware itself. At the time, Dbrand showed off a case modeled after the iconic Weighted Companion Cube from Portal 2 and later sold it for $99 — all without ever asking Valve permission for the use of its IP. Therefore, as expected, the case is now gone, and every order will be subsequently refunded.

RIP Companion Cube from r/dbrand

This is pretty characteristic of Dbrand, a company that prides itself on its edgy corporate branding where it often doesn't care about playing by the rules. That's fine as long as the rule-breaking is limited to cursing out your customers on social media, but it doesn't work when you violate copyright law. If anything, Valve was generous with allowing Dbrand to get away with selling the case for this long without repercussions.

That's precisely the takeaway from the company's official statement (embedded above) where it calls Valve "direct, fair, and respectful throughout." Valve's legal team reached out to Dbrand and asked it to shut down the entire operation; halt sales immediately and take down the sales page and all promotional content. Dbrand complied and even extended a hand for an official collaboration, but Valve turned down the offer.

The popular skin manufacturer has previously found itself in similar hot waters with Sony and Nintendo. You may remember the famous "Darkplates" saga where the company similarly took advantage of an open customization feature and started selling faceplates for the newly-launched PS5. On the other hand, it also sold unofficial Zelda skins for the Switch OLED, literally called "Clone of the Kingdom."

It's one thing to produce accessories with original designs, but it's a completely different thing to use said company's IP as the design, regardless of the engineering efforts behind it. That's why the Darkplates eventually came back, but the Zelda skin can't. And it's also why a Portal 2-themed case can't realistically exist without asking the company who owns Portal. Valve had to draw a line somewhere to protect its IP and avoid creating precedence for future litigation.

Anyhow, this machoistic corporate strategy has worked wonders for Dbrand's online following, but even the fans called out this move as comically stupid. Beyond the copyright violation, the chance of an official partnership is now gone, too. Dbrand said the Companion Cube case became its second-fastest selling product ever, implying things would've certainly worked out had Dbrand approached Valve ahead of time.

Meta PCs has announced preorders for Steamroller, the first prebuilt gaming PC running on SteamOS. The system features standard PC components that are broadly similar to those offered by Valve in the base variant of the Steam Machine. Priced at $1,299, the Steamroller is available for preorder now, with shipping set to begin on July 3, 2026. Buyers can also opt for an extended warranty, with two-year and three-year plans available for $180 and $240, respectively.

The Steamroller uses the Jonsbo D32, a well-ventilated m-ATX chassis with an AMD Ryzen 9600X, which is a 6-core, 12-thread CPU capable of boosting up to 5.4 GHz. Meta PCs mentions that the B650M/B650M Wi-Fi m-ATX motherboard will vary in brand and styling, meaning not all Steamroller PCs are alike, though they shouldn’t vary in terms of performance. For graphics, the system comes with AMD’s last-gen Radeon RX 7600 based on the RDNA 3 architecture with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. The system also includes 16GB of DDR5 RAM at 5600 MT/s, a 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD, a 240mm AIO liquid cooler, and a 650W Gold power supply unit.

In terms of hardware, the Steamroller seems competitive with Valve's new Steam Machine. Since it includes standard PC components, one also gains the ability to upgrade almost any component in the future, unlike the Steam Machine, which only allows you to swap the RAM and storage. That said, the Steam Machine is more compact, measuring at 152 × 162 × 156 mm (6.0 × 6.4 × 6.1 inches), justifying its console/living room PC purpose.

Another aspect to consider is practicality. The Steam Machine supports HDMI CEC, a protocol that allows it to communicate and control compatible devices such as your TV and soundbar. This allows you to power on the Steam Machine and your TV simultaneously, and even switch to the correct input, without leaving your couch or reaching for a remote. Unfortunately, HDMI CEC is not supported on most PCs, including the Steamroller. The Steam Machine also features standby and quick resume functionality, which allows you to put the system to sleep and jump back into your game almost instantly.

The Steamroller is essentially aimed at potential customers who want a gaming PC running on SteamOS with the flexibility of standard PC hardware. While it may lack some of the living room-focused features available on the Steam Machine, it makes up for them by offering a system that is easier to upgrade and repair, while also offering a way to experience SteamOS without assembling an entire system.

The best gaming desktops don’t just chase raw speed – they deliver the right balance of power, style, and value. CyberPower’s Gaming Desktop GXi3800BSTV2 ($2,309.99 as tested) comes out swinging with a stylish new case, complete with analog lighting knob, a spotless interior, and plenty of RGB for a showroom look. Backed by an Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, it’s built to impress, and despite a few concessions, it’s hard not to admire how much CyberPower gets right for the money.

Design of the CyberPowerPC Gaming Desktop GXi3800BSTV2

The biggest draw for this particular CyberPower configuration is its MA-01 case. It offers analog RGB controls and hidden fans and radiators for a strikingly modern look. Though the fans aren’t truly hidden – they’re concealed behind plastic grates to give the impression that they’re not there – it adds a level of polish and cleanliness to the interior lines.

CyberPower did its best to avoid directly visible LEDs for a soft look and mostly succeeded; The LEDs in the CPU water block are an exception. It missed a minor opportunity to add more RGB lighting by using standard DIMMs rather than RGB-lit ones, but this tower arguably already runs over the line of too much RGB. Everything is visible through the artfully curved panel, which highlights the obvious about this case – it’s designed to be seen and shown off.

The three lighting dials are unlabeled. Starting from the top are controls for colors, brightness, and patterns; the latter includes breathing, strobing, and rainbow effects. (This seems to be the more basic version of the MA-01 case; on other versions, the dials are for Red, Green, and Blue for finer control.) Changing the color mix takes just seconds. You can also press in on any knob to achieve an all-white look. It’s easy to create a unique look without using software. (In fact, you can’t use software to control the lighting on this PC since the individual RGB elements are only recognized as a generic RGB strip in the Asus Armoury Crate app.)

Build quality is where this case, or at least this version, shows some budget elements. While it didn't creak or bend when I picked it up, the rolled steel panels feel thin. Additionally, the viewing panel, which CyberPowerPC says is tempered glass, feels plasticky and is not as clear as it could be. Last, the analog knobs feel cheap, and the bottom one tended to fall off in my testing. Size-wise, this case is decidedly in mid-tower territory at 9.5 x 17.7 x 20.9 inches.

CyberPowerPC Gaming Desktop Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the CyberPowerPC Gaming Desktop

CyberPower’s desktop offers respectable input and output, starting on the lower front panel with one USB-C and two USB-A ports and a 3.5 mm audio jack. This port placement should work well if this desktop is on top of a desk. The power button is on the adjacent side next to the case lighting control dials.

Around back, the Asus B860M Max Gaming AX motherboard offers USB-C (20 Gbps), four USB-A 3.2, four USB 2.0, DisplayPort, and three 3.5 mm audio jacks. At least one truly high-speed port like USB4 or Thunderbolt 4 would have been ideal. Also, Wi-Fi 6 from the built-in RealTek RTL8851BE wireless card is several years out of date.

Getting inside this CyberPower’s case isn’t straightforward. Both side panels look like they should pull off, but they are actually screwed in at the top. The top grate, which doesn’t have any obvious fingerholds, must be popped off to access the two Philips-head screws securing each panel. Removable dust filters line the right panel.

Motherboard expansion slots include one PCIe 5.0 x16, two PCIe 4.0 x16 supporting x4, and one PCIe 4.0 x16 supporting x1. Memory can be expanded with four DIMM slots. There are also three M.2 slots, one of which is PCIe 5.0. The other slots support PCIe 4.0, with one on the front and one on the back of the board. The latter is accessible by removing the tower’s right panel. You can also see the 3.5-inch drive cage in the lower chamber.

The 850-watt power supply isn’t modular, leading to a mass of tied-off cables, but it easily supplies enough juice for the components in this PC. CyberPower’s cable management is acceptable, with cables routed and bundled neatly enough for a mass-market PC.

Gaming and Graphics on the CyberPowerPC Gaming Desktop

The CyberPower we tested features a Core Ultra 7 270K Plus processor, Nvidia RTX 5070 graphics, and 32GB of DDR5-6400 RAM.

For some informal play, I launched Crysis Remastered. Playing at a 3840 x 2160 resolution with everything at “Can it run Crysis?” settings, I saw between 75 and 85 frames per second (FPS) outdoors, with slight dips in the jungle and wide-open landscapes with lots of shadows. Overall, the gameplay was exceptionally smooth.

We used two gaming desktops for comparison: the Acer Nitro 65 ($2,069.99 as tested) combines a Ryzen 9 9900X with an RTX 5070 while the iBuyPower Y40 Pro ($1,899.99 when we tested it, but very difficult to find now) pairs a Ryzen 9 7900X with an RTX 5070 Ti.

Starting in Shadow of the Tomb Raider at the Highest detail preset, the CyberPower and Acer tied the 1080p numbers at 209 FPS and were within one frame at 4K. Naturally, the RTX 5070 Ti-equipped iBuyPower dominated both, with 228 FPS at 1080p.

The story was similar in CyberPunk 2077 at Ray Tracing Ultra settings. The CyberPower achieved 71 FPS at 1080p but fell to 21 FPS at 4K, being within one FPS of the Acer in both instances. The iBuyPower surged ahead, with 87 FPS at 1080p, but even it couldn’t make a playable time of it at 4K, with just 29 FPS.

In Far Cry 6 at Ultra settings, the CyberPower led the 1080p scores with 141 FPS, well ahead of the Acer (132 FPS) and iBuyPower (125 FPS). Things evened out at 4K, with the CyberPower and Acer at 81 FPS and 82 FPS, respectively, and the iBuyPower about 25% faster, at 102 FPS.

Red Dead Redemption 2 at Medium settings was a disappointment for CyberPower, with its 126 FPS at 1080p noticeably trailing Acer (141 FPS) and especially iBuyPower (161 FPS). The gaps narrowed at 4K, though CyberPower was still last – it scored 51 FPS next to the Acer’s 54 FPS.

CyberPower redeemed itself in Black Myth: Wukong at Cinematic settings, its 55 FPS at 1080p overtaking the Acer (50 FPS) while being behind the iBuyPower (66 FPS). It tied the Acer with 25 FPS at 4K though it couldn’t catch the iBuyPower (32 FPS).

Overall, though CyberPower’s Core Ultra 7 270K Plus didn’t give its RTX 5070 enough of a boost to overcome the iBuyPower’s RTX 5070 Ti, it still produced impressive numbers, often leading the RTX 5070-equipped Acer by a decent amount.

Equipped with the RTX 5070, this CyberPower offers ample horsepower for gaming at 1080p/1440p and 4K, though fluid playability at 4K in the most demanding titles may require reducing the visual quality settings.

To stress test gaming desktops, we simulate half an hour of gaming by running 15 loops of the Metro: Exodus benchmark at RTX settings. The CyberPower desktop averaged 138 FPS with only a few tenths of an FPS variance between runs, indicating stable thermal performance. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus ran at an average temperature of 48 degrees Celsius while the P-cores ran 5.34 GHz at and the E-cores 3.77 GHz. The RTX 5070 ran at 61 C and had an average core clock of 2.74 GHz.

During testing, the desktop’s fans were noticeable but not intrusive; while gaming, I could hold a conversation with someone sitting next to me without the fan noise becoming a topic.

Productivity Performance on the CyberPowerPC Gaming Desktop

Equipped with a Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, the CyberPower proved formidable in our productivity testing.

While the rig's single-core score of 3,317 points in the Geekbench 6 benchmark was imperceptibly behind Acer's 3,348 points, it handily outclassed the iBuyPower’s older Ryzen 9 7900X and its 2,953 points. But it truly showed its strength in multi-core, with 22,485 points to Acer’s 18,282 and iBuyPower’s 17,226.

CyberPower slotted into the middle of our 25GB file transfer test, with 1,616.52 MBps to lead iBuyPower’s 1,501.6 MBps and trail Acer’s 1,719.57 MBps.

Last, this CyberPower dominated our 4K-to-1080p Handbrake test, completing the transcode in just 1 minute and 45 seconds. The iBuyPower (2:29) and Acer (2:51) were well off its pace.

Keyboard and Mouse with the CyberPowerPC Gaming Desktop

The GXi3800BSTV2 includes RGB-centric wired peripherals that might tide you over if you’re sticking to a budget. The CyberPower Nohi 02 keyboard is a basic desktop keyboard with a few notable extras. Though it’s described as a mechanical-like feel, its rubbery keypresses say otherwise. I nonetheless found it comfortable for extended typing and gaming. The layout is as expected and there's a handy volume scroller at top left.

The keyboard's RGB backlighting is bright and vibrant. No peripheral software is included, but you can switch between different lighting patterns using Fn and one of the number keys (1-9). Effects include a respectable assortment of wave, color shift, sweep, solid color, and several breathing variations. Lighting can be toggled with the key next to right Alt, effect speed with Fn + plus or minus, and brightness with Fn + Page Up/Down.

The CyberPower Elite M2 wired mouse is also basic. It’s only for right-handers, featuring two buttons on the left side. There are five sensitivity settings – the DPI numbers aren’t published – which you toggle pressing the button behind the scroll wheel. Average in size, the mouse fits my medium hands well and offers tactile, engaging clicks. The RGB effects illuminate the palm reset logo and the semicircle around the palm rest. Various color cycling patterns are available – simply hold down the DPI button to switch between them.

Software and Warranty on the CyberPowerPC Gaming Desktop

CyberPower’s software loadout is minimal. Asus Armoury Crate provides hardware monitoring and software overclocking but little else – the RGB devices in this desktop are only recognized as an addressable strip, and can’t be controlled there. (That’s what the knobs on the tower are for.) Otherwise, besides the default Windows 11 apps, there’s no extra software.

This CyberPower from Best Buy carries a one-year parts and labor warranty while systems purchased from CyberPower include two years of parts and three years of labor.

CyberPowerPC Gaming Desktop Configurations

Our CyberPower review unit features a Core Ultra 7 270K Plus processor with 360 mm liquid cooling, an Nvidia RTX 5070 graphics card, 32GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD, and Windows 11 Home for $2,309.99 from Best Buy.

Best Buy didn’t have any other CyberPower desktops with the MA-01 case, though CyberPower offered many configurations starting at $1,699, which gets you a Ryzen 7 9700X and an RTX 5060 Ti. The top preconfigured model ran $3,815 with a Ryzen 9 9950X3D, an RTX 5080, 32GB of RAM, and a 4TB SSD. CyberPower also offers built-to-order models starting at $1,245.

Competing desktops with an RTX 5070 bracketed our CyberPower review unit’s price. At Best Buy, an Asus ROG G700 was $2,409.99 with a Core Ultra 7 265KF while an HP Omen 35L was $1,999, though it dropped to a Ryzen 7 8700F and a 1TB SSD.

To compare CyberPower’s prices to what it would cost to build a similar PC yourself, I mock-configured several systems using the AI PC builder on Newegg, landing within $100 in most instances. That's a pretty nominal premium to have the system built and ready to go.

Bottom Line

CyberPower’s GXi3800BSTV2 earns its place among the better prebuilt gaming desktops. The company's MA-01 case gives it a distinctive look, and the analog lighting controls mean you don't need software to dial in a unique theme. Equipped with a Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, 360 mm liquid cooling, and an RTX 5070, it produces strong gaming performance without getting too loud. You even get decent peripherals.

Some concessions were made to hit its price: the case relies on plastic instead of tempered glass, wireless is limited to Wi-Fi 6, and there are no Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports. Even so, it still makes for a compelling value, even next to DIY builds. For gamers who want a flashy tower with the performance to match – and the convenience of a full-system warranty — the GXi3800BSTV2 is an easy system to recommend.

Correction, July 1, 2026: CyberPowerPC tells Tom's Hardware that the viewing panel on the MA-01 is tempered glass, not plastic. We have addressed this, but still feel that the window did not seem substantial.

ZanaZamora, the U.S.-based trucker who packs a powerful driving sim rig in their semi, just posted an update about it that went viral on Reddit. The sim racing and flight sim enthusiast said in r/SimRacing Setups that Conspit, the brand they used for the driving-sim wheel on their original gaming rig, worked with them on these upgrades.

The biggest change that we saw with the semi-truck sim rig is the white GT-Lite racing rig with a white-and-blue Pro racing seat. ZanaZamora said that it “not only looks fantastic in here but also fits better in the limited space. A surprisingly small footprint for such a beefy rig. The proper racing bucket seat is way more comfy, with proper posture not only adding to immersion but helping with feeling and reacting to the feedback from the controls better.” Aside from the rig and seat, they also received Conspit CPP Evo 3 pedals, an Ares Platinum wheelbase, a quick adapter, and a dashboard.

The Redittor and truck driver said that the parts and accessories are much smaller and lighter than their previous build, which is crucial for the limited space that they have inside their truck.

Years ago my post of my semi truck gaming rig here went fairly viral. I’m happy to share that it has continued to evolve into this now absolutely unhinged setup, replacing my passenger seat with an entire Sim Racing/Flight rig from r/pcmasterrace

Aside from these racing-centric upgrades, we also see a few other new parts. For example, it looks like they now drive a Corsair K95 RGB Platinum XT keyboard and a proper Stream Deck — significant upgrades from their old wireless keyboard and generic macro pad.

ZanaZamora said that their friend owns the truck that they drive, and that “he actually supports it for the most part,” referring to their “unhinged setup” that sits on the passenger side of the semi. When a commenter asked what “for the most part” meant, they said, “For the most part, as in ‘that’s cool, but I have bills to pay, don’t stay up all night gaming.’"

Even though some may think installing such an expensive setup in a truck is a bit risky for theft, the trucker said everything is bolted to the sim rig (which we assume is securely installed on the truck itself). “It’d be a pain to steal any of this,” ZanaZamora said. They also added, “It would take some time and tools, i.e. planning. And the only time I’m ever off the truck that long is when it’s parked securely at my house.”

Here at Computex 2026 in Taipei, Asus held an early press event to showcase its updated Zenbook, Expertbook, and Strix Scar laptops, along with the new TUF T700 gaming desktop. The additions to the Zenbook and Vivo series, the Zenbook 14 (3 different models), and Vivobook Series (S14/S16 and S14/16 Flip) promise to, according to Asus, ‘elevate the everyday computing experience’ with an all-metal construction, updated branding (the shell will only say Asus now), and new colorways including Arctic Blue and Komodo Coral for a more personalized look. Meanwhile, the company’s compact TUF Gaming T700 desktop bumps up its specs and moves to a proprietary motherboard.

The Zenbook 14 laptops use Intel, AMD, or a Snapdragon processor, with up to 24GB of RAM (16GB for Snapdragon-based models) and up to 512GB of PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage (Snapdragon model, the others do not list 512GB as a maximum). The Intel-based SKU (UX3480AA) sports up to a 3K (2880x1800) 14-inch OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, while the AMD and Snapdragon SKUs (UX3480GA and UX3480QA, respectively) use an FHD (1920x1200) screen with a 60Hz refresh rate. They all include Wi-Fi 6E and offer typical connectivity, including audio combo jacks, HDMI, USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, and Type-C – the latter supports PD and DP support for charging and display output. Each has at least one 40 Gbps Type-C port, with the Snapdragon-based Zenbook shipping with two. The Vivobook S14/S16 Flip, with its Snapdragon X (orX Plus) and flexible 360-degree design (laptop/tablet/tent), also receives new colorway options.

In addition to the Zenbooks, we also saw the new Expertbook B5 Flip G2, a 360-degree convertible designed for hybrid workflows for business professionals, students, and educators who are looking for flexibility, performance, and security. It even hides the stylus in its thin (0.58-inches) and light (2.9 lbs) chassis. Specs-wise, it’s powered by the Intel Core 7 350 processor, an 18 TOPS NPU, and Intel graphics. You can pack it with up to 32 GB of LPDDRX5 RAM and up to 1TB of PCIe 4.0 SSD storage, and it has plenty of connectivity, including TB4 USB-C ports, HDMI, and two USB 3.2 gen 1 Type-A ports, all in a Gentle Grey finish.

The Expertbooks, P5 (14-inch) and PM5 G2 (16-inch) are enterprise-grade devices and feature Asus ExpertGuardian and a NIST PSP 800--1930 compliant BIOS and other various safeguards, including a fingerprint sensor, physical webcam shield, and more. Performance-wise, both Expertbooks' NPUs exceed 40 TOPS.

Asus also showed off its ROG Strix G16/G18 and Strix Scar gaming laptops for 2026, with minor hardware updates. The Scar 18 now supports up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX processor with 200W sustained power (from the 275HX), along with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 laptop GPU with max power up to 175 TGP – a gaming beast, no doubt. Both the G16 and G18 get a bump in GPU performance, with the G16 offering an RTX 5080 laptop GPU and the G18 an RTX 5070 laptop GPU. The illuminated numeric keypad, which looks cool in person, I must admit, also made its way to the G16 and G18 (from the familiar ROG Zephyrus and Zenbook lines). I'm not sure how useful that will be on a laptop designed more for gaming, but it's a nice aesthetic touch. Pricing wasn’t listed, but you should see these, along with the updated Zenbook/Vivobooks, available early in the second half of 2026.

The TUF T700 Gaming PC is an updated version of the T500, with a different (and better-looking) chassis and access to more powerful CPUs. The new boards sport up to an Intel Core U9-275HX or an AMD Ryzen 7-8700F APU. The inside of the chassis includes a 240mm TUF-branded AIO, a PCIe 4.0 storage interface, up to 64GB of SO-DIMM DDR5-5200 MT/s RAM (we’d like to see faster spec-RAM), an efficient 80 Plus Platinum power supply, and up to an Nvidia RTX 5070 Prime graphics, an increase over the last generation T series that maxed out with an RTX 5060 Ti (16GB). Asus will also use a proprietary motherboard in these systems, with a proprietary form factor that resembles MicroATX, with an extra ‘tab’ protruding along the right edge to support additional USB ports.

The incremental, sometimes mostly aesthetic-only, updates on laptops aren’t exactly exciting, but when you’re in the middle of a CPU lifecycle from both camps and video card upgrades have also stalled (thanks, AI), there isn’t a whole lot laptop makers can do. That said, we’re told Asus’ booth at the convention center has something special they couldn’t share at this pre-briefing, so keep an eye out for additional coverage of Asus at Computex 2026 in the coming days to see what it and dozens of other companies will have to offer as the year progresses.

The Acer Nitro 65 vies for a spot among the best gaming PCs, and packs in a Ryzen 9 9900X processor, 32GB of DDR5 memory, and a GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card. Given its hardware pedigree, Acer positions the Nitro 65 as an entry-level 4K gaming system. The mid-tower system features an attractive design with a glass side panel, a curved glass front panel, and the usual RGB trimmings. Acer even includes Wi-Fi 7 connectivity, which is a welcome addition given the $2,069 asking price.

Editor's Note: The first Nitro 65 review unit we received exhibited lesser than expected performance and, upon further inspection, damage to some internal components. Acer sent us a second system, which is used here.

Design of the Acer Nitro 65

The Nitro 65 features a sleek black chassis made of a mix of stainless steel and plastic. The case and right side panel are made of steel, while the left side panel is constructed of tempered glass. Both panels are accessed by sticking your finger into a recessed groove and pulling toward you. Then, each panel pivots out and can be completely removed.

The curved glass on the front is embedded in a plastic housing that extends from the floor to the top of the chassis. The same plastic is used for another trim piece that sits below the left side panel. The two plastic pieces feature an engraved channel that combines additional ventilation holes and an RGB light strip that runs from the side of the chassis to the front.

Magnetic dust filters are provided at the top of the chassis and on the right-side panel (which houses two 120 mm RGB fans). There are two additional 120 mm RGB fans at the rear of the chassis, which are joined by the 120 mm RGB fan for the air CPU cooler and the RGB DDR5 memory sticks.

The Nitro 65 measures 18.4 x 17 x 9.6 inches and weighs 28 pounds.

Acer Nitro 65 Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the Acer Nitro 65

Taking things from the top, the Nitro 65 offers a pretty good selection of ports. You get two USB-A ports and one USB-C port. The inclusion of the latter is much appreciated, and is a point that we harped on in our review of the Nitro 60. There’s also a 3.5 mm audio combo jack along with power and reset buttons.

The rear I/O ports come courtesy of the Gigabyte B850M C motherboard. Here you'll find four USB-A 2.0 ports, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, and one USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 port. That should be more than enough plugs to appease most enthusiasts, but it would have been nice to see at least one Thunderbolt port at this price point ($2,099). You'll also find HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort ports, a 2.5 GbE port, and a trio of 3.5 mm audio jacks. Another interesting addition is a WiFi EZ-Plug for the included Wi-Fi antenna, which is a simple plug-and-play affair rather than the typical screw-in antenna connectors.

As for expansion slots on the motherboard, the B850M C features one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. There are also two M.2 slots (1x PCIe 5.0, 2x PCIe 4.0). There are also four DDR5 DIMM slots supporting up to 256GB of memory.

There’s also a tray for mounting additional SSDs and HDDs, accessible by removing the right-side panel. Finally, our review unit shipped with a non-modular 850W power supply. The lack of a modular design is somewhat surprising at this price point.

Gaming and Graphics Performance on the Acer Nitro 65The Nitro 65 review unit that we received features a Ryzen 9 9900X processor, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, and a GeForce RTX 5070 GPU.

To have some fun with the system before jumping into the standard benchmark suite, I played a few rounds of Battlefield 6. I played the game at 2560 x 1600 resolution with the Ultra preset and DLSS enabled. Performance averaged between 140 and 150 frames per second (FPS) during my fragging sessions.

The systems that we have assembled for comparison are the Acer Nitro 60 (Core i7-14700F, RTX 5070), Asus ROG G700 (Core Ultra 7 265KF, RTX 5070), and the iBuyPower Y40 Pro (Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 5070 Ti).

Unsurprisingly, the systems equipped with an RTX 5070 were quite evenly matched in the gaming benchmarks, with the iBuyPower Y49 Pro eking out the best numbers in most benchmarks thanks to its beefier RTX 5070 Ti.

In the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (Highest detail preset), the Nitro 65 delivered 209 FPS at 1080p and 70 FPS at 4K. That put it about 5 percent ahead of the Nitro 69 and ROG G700 at 1080p, but on even footing at 4K. The Y40 Pro pulled out to a commanding lead with 228 FPS at 1080p and 89 FPS at 4K.

Cyberpunk 2077 (Ray Tracing Ultra preset) is a more demanding game and can be quite punishing on even the best gaming systems. Here, the Nitro 65 managed 69 FPS at 1080p, compared to 65 FPS and 70 FPS for the Nitro 60 and ROG G700, respectively. Those three systems hovered around 20 fps at 4K resolution. The Y40 Pro, however, flexed its muscles with 87 FPS at 1080p and 29 FPS at 4K. With that said, none of these machines offer playable 4K performance, so you’ll likely want to stick with 1440p/1600p or 1080p to make the most of what the RTX 5070 can provide.

Far Cry 6 (Ultra preset) saw the Nitro 65 top the charts, achieving 132 FPS at 1080p compared to 125 FPS on the Y40 Pro. However, the Y40 Pro turned the tables when cranking the resolution to 4K (102 FPS for the Y40 Pro versus 82 FPS for the Nitro 65).

The Nitro 65 performed nearly identically to the Nitro 60 in Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium preset), with the two systems achieving 141 FPS and 143 FPS, respectively, at 1080p, and the same 54 FPS at 4K. The ROG G700 was half a step behind (120 FPS, 50 FPS), while the Y40 Pro was half a step ahead (161 FPS, 66 FPS).

Finally, we come to Black Myth: Wukong (Cinematic preset), where the Nitro 65 actually ended up at the back of the pack at 1080p (50 FPS) and tied for second place at 4K (25 FPS). Not surprisingly, the Y40 Pro led with 66 FPS at 1080p and 32 FPS at 4K resolution.

Metro Exodus remains our go-to for stress-testing gaming PCs, and we run each through 15 loops to simulate 30 minutes of gameplay. During the stress test, the Nitro 65 averaged 143 FPS. Across the 15 runs, the Ryzen 9 9900X averaged 57.7 degrees Celsius, while the RTX 5070 averaged 60.24 C. The fans were quite audible during the stress test (and during general gaming). Acer’s decision to go with air cooling for the CPU at this price point is a bit of a puzzle.

Productivity Performance on the Acer Nitro 65

With a Ryzen 9 9900X, 32GB of DDR5, and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, the Nitro 65 wasn’t quite as strong in productivity performance. It came out strong in our Geekbench 6 synthetic CPU benchmark, scoring 3,348 in single-core (the highest of the group) and 18,282 in multi-core (second place behind the ROG G700).

In our 25GB file transfer test, the Nitro 65 didn’t quite have the juice to climb up the performance ladder. It delivered 1,719.57 MBps compared to 1,816.50 MBps on the ROG G700 and 1,861.60 MBps on the Nitro 60.

Finally, the Handbrake 4K-to-1080p video transcoding test placed the Nitro 65 in third place, with a time of 2 minutes and 51 seconds. The ROG G700 turned in the best time of 2:03, while the Y40 Pro rolled into second place at 2:29. The Nitro 60 was at the back of the pack at 3 minutes and 10 seconds.

Keyboard and Mouse on the Acer Nitro 65

The Nitro 65 ships with a basic wired USB keyboard and mouse. The mouse is designed for right-handed gamers and has a very cheap plastic feel. Yes, it’s lightweight, but I just can’t get past the plasticky feel. The main buttons click with authority, as do the two side buttons. The scroll wheel is rubberized and has satisfying detents as you flick it up and down. DPI is adjustable via a button behind the scroll wheel. There’s also an RGB strip that runs across the top and side of the mouse, and light also peeks out from the scroll wheel.

The keyboard is also rather mediocre and feels cheap. The entire keyboard deck flexes to a high degree when twisting it, and the plastic covering the Num, Caps, and Scroll LEDs wasn’t even aligned properly. The keyboard, however, features an integrated scroll wheel for volume control and single-zone RGB backlighting.

Software and Warranty on the Acer Nitro 65

The Nitro 65 is relatively light on factory-installed bloatware. The biggest offender is a free 30-day trial of the McAfee antivirus suite. This would be the first app to get the boot from me. There is also a small smattering of game demos and subscription apps that Microsoft throws into the Start Menu by default.

The only item of note is Acer Jumpstart, which is nothing but a shortcut that opens your browser to Acer’s homepage.

The Nitro 65 ships with a one-year parts and labor warranty.

Acer Nitro 65 Configurations

The Nitro 65, as far as we can tell, is a Best Buy-exclusive offering from Acer. There is no mention of the system on Acer’s website, and it’s not available from its online store. However, there are four configurations available from Best Buy’s online marketplace.

Our review unit came with a Ryzen 9 9900X processor, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, a GeForce RTX 5070 GPU, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, and an 850W power supply for $2,069.99 at Best Buy. There’s also a configuration that swaps out the RTX 5070 for a Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU (with all other specs remaining the same) for $2,229.99.

There are also cheaper configurations available, starting at $1,379.99 for a Ryzen 7 8700F with 16GB of DDR5, a 1TB SSD, and a Radeon RX 9060 XT. Swapping out the RX 9060 XT for an RTX 5060 raises the price slightly to $1,399.99.

Bottom Line

The Acer Nitro 65 is a well-equipped gaming desktop with strong gaming and mid-pack productivity performance with a Ryzen 9 9900X processor and RTX 5070 processor on deck. With a price tag of over $2,000, we expected a bit more performance. And with systems hundreds of dollars less employing liquid cooling, it’s a bit of a head scratcher that Acer uses an air cooler that can be grating on your ears under load.

The Asus ROG G700 still remains a more compelling offering in this segment (while saving you $70), with similar performance and a water-cooled CPU to help keep noise levels down.

My PC has a decent case with decent parts. When I think of boutique builds, they have top-of-the-line specs with cases perfectly coated with automotive-quality paint. The revamped Maingear MG-1 in the new MK.II chassis straddles the line, with options for up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 and AMD Ryzen 9950X3D2 in a chassis that has personalization options but doesn't look like it belongs in a street race.

In our configuration, with the top CPU and GPU, that leads to a build that costs over $7,000 (that's the case for the high end on the best gaming PCs these days), though this system starts at $2,249. There are a ton of options, but the system is always a pretty standard case with a tempered-glass window and a customizable face plate. It makes for a system that you wish you'd built, but without all of the bells and custom tubing whistles that some boutique systems get into.

Design of the Maingear MG-1 (2026)

The Maingear MG-1's new chassis, the MK.II, is a very standard mid-tower. It's rectangular without too many frills. It's a black aluminum box with a window on the left-side panel with ample views of the components, RGB lighting, and very clean cable management, thanks largely in part to the motherboard's rear-side connectors. Other than the blue power button on the top to serve as an accent, it's pretty standard.

That is, except for the magnetic front panel. It's not dissimilar to the one from the original MG-1, but this one has a curved scoop around it that diffuses RGB lighting and makes it easier to replace with other custom panels that Maingear would be happy to sell you. It's also shorter, with room for your hand to slide underneath to easily pull it off to replace or clean. It's a pretty nifty system.

The 18.78 x 19.65 x 9.06-inch chassis is noticeably larger than the previous one, which was 19 x 16.88 x 8.13 inches. That extra width makes it more likely to end up on the floor than on a desk.

The front panel is in front of three 140 mm intake fans, the bottom of which sends air beneath the GPU. Another fan is located at the back of the PC to let hot air out of the case. Our review unit also has Maingear's 360 mm CPU liquid cooler doubling as an exhaust. The front intakes are behind a dust filter. Another magnetic filter is on top, above the radiator. Another filter, with a convenient handle, is beneath the power supply on the bottom of the case.

Our MG-1 review unit came with MSI Center preinstalled, which is where you would adjust the RGB lighting (most of the motherboards available are from MSI, with the exception of one Asus X870E option). While our motherboard itself didn't have any, the app was able to change the fans, a lightstrip built into the case, the RAM, and the face plate. The GPU's lighting can only be white, which is a limitation of the Founders Edition.

The case itself is just fine. It's not as premium as the ones that Maingear sells using premium auto-paint. If you go for a high-end model here, you're doing it for the parts on the inside.

Maingear MG-1 (2026) Specifications

The price as configured isn't a massive markup over doing it yourself. When I put together a build with similar parts (the GPU, cooler, fans, and case weren't exact, as some of those are Maingear branded and the 5090 FE wasn't for sale), it came out to $6,597.02 at the time of writing. That's not bad, considering this is built so nicely.

Ports and Upgradeability on the Maingear MG-1 (2026)

The front panel of the Maingear MG-1's new MK.II chassis doesn't have as many ports as I would like. There's a single USB-A port and USB-C port, along with a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The USB-C port seemingly fits in where a USB-A port would usually go. Maingear is actually down one port from its previous model, which had two Type-A ports. It's a significant downgrade in my eyes, and I wish Maingear kept the old port layout. Otherwise, there's a power button and a reset button.

The ports on the back of the rig are entirely dependent on your motherboard. Our review unit came with an MSI MAG X870E Tomahawk Max WiFi PZ with a plethora of USB-A ports, a few USB-C ports, as well as Ethernet, audio, and HDMI connectors. Your video outputs will be based on the GPU. The RTX 5090 Founders edition has one HDMI port and three DisplayPorts. Most Nvidia GPUs have this same layout, but it’s always worth double-checking.

The inside of the new MG-1 is immaculate. From the glass side panel, there are almost no cables. Sure, you can see the GPU connector (our review unit included braided black extension cables to class things up), the tubing for the AIO, and a single stray cable from the CPU cooler's pump stretching through a grommet to the back. But that's it, because the motherboard uses backside connectors. You'll also see here that the GPU is supported by a bracket (it appears to be 3D printed) screwed into the case.

The backside is a really clean job. Everything is tied up nicely and out of the way. While I could nitpick that a few of the motherboard connectors are blocked by the job, I can't think of a way you would better wire this case. I certainly couldn't do something this nice on my own. The back also features a sled behind the motherboard where you can mount three 2.5-inch drives.

Below the main chamber, the PSU is out of the way. Extra cables are included with the system for modular power supplies, but Maingear didn't jam them underneath, which I appreciate. There's also a sled for larger hard drives, should you still like to use spinning metal.

It would be a big shame to cut open this cable management job, but since everything in this prebuilt is totally standard, you'd be able to make any upgrades you want. Our system doesn't need much in the way of upgrades right now, other than possible storage or RAM.

Gaming and Graphics on the Maingear MG-1 (2026)

Like most systems paired with the most powerful consumer graphics card you can buy, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090 paired with the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, the new MG-1 tears through most of our graphics benchmarks.

I used the system to continue my playthrough of Resident Evil Requiem, and it was the most visually impressive way I've played the game so far. With these high-end components, I set the resolution to 4K with path tracing and hair strand effects on. I had the game scan the system to prioritize quality, relying on mostly high settings. I turned off frame-gen to see just what the raw metal could do, but the game mandated upscaling.

It was impressive. As Leon, traversing rooftops and covering Grace during a sniper mission, the MG-1 ran the game between 65 and 75 frames per second. It did dip to around 55 FPS during big explosions and fire effects as he approached the chapel after taking out all of the infected zombies outside. Maingear's fans were definitely audible, but they weren't at such a roar that a half-decent headset couldn't cover them.

Notably, Maingear came out significantly ahead on every single test at 1080p, though in 4K, the systems were mostly even. Where a system fell behind, it was usually the Intel-based Alienware.The Maingear was typically the top performer, but where it wasn't, like in Red Dead Redemption 2 at 4K, it was only by 1 or 2 frames — effectively within the margin of error.If you're looking to play games in 4K, this system will do it, and then some.

To stress test systems, we run Metro Exodus at RTX settings 15 times in a row to simulate about half an hour of gaming. Here, the MG-1 averaged 188.39 FPS and was consistent across the runs. The CPU cores averaged 4.6 GHz with a temperature of 59.7 degrees Celsius, while the GPU ran at 2,420.25 MHz and at 68.12 C.

Productivity Performance on the Maingear MG-1 (2026)

Unsurprisingly, a gaming rig that costs over $7,000 with an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D2, 32GB of RAM, and a fast 2TB SSD is also quite good at everyday tasks.

On Geekbench 6, the MG-1's 9950X3D2 notched a single-core score of 3,574 and a multi-core score of 23,741. Those were slightly ahead of the 9950X3D in the Alienware Area-51.The Alienware Area-51 with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K had the lowest single-core score (3,148) while the HP Omen Max 45L's Ryzen 9 9900X3D was lowest in multi-core.

The PCIe 5 SSD in the Maingear was speedy, copying 25GB of files at a rate of 2,782.43 MBps. The Alienware Area-51 with 9950X3D, however, was one of the fastest prebuilts we've seen, at 3,414.29 MBps.The Maingear MG-1 transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in one minute and 32 seconds, the fastest of the bunch, followed by the AMD-based Area-51.

Software and Warranty on the Maingear MG-1 (2026)

Outside of the clean build, one of Maingear's largest benefits is that you avoid a lot of the excess software found on a lot of prebuilt systems.

The Maingear only came with the necessities. MSI Center was onboard, which is necessary to control the RGB lighting. It also allows for basic performance monitoring.Otherwise, our review rig came with system software from AMD and Nvidia, the major silicon manufacturers. There was no bloatware, no trials, no garbage.Windows 11 does have some of its own bloat, like putting a shortcut to LinkedIn in the Start Menu, but that's not an issue Maingear can fix.

Maingear sells the MG-1 with a one-year hardware warranty on top of the manufacturer's warranty on the components. The company also promises lifetime customer support. A 2-year warranty is an extra $99, while a 3-year extension costs $199.

Maingear MG-1 (2026) Configurations

We tested the Maingear MG-1 in an extremely high-end configuration, including an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D2, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition, 32GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage. You can see the exact parts list in the table above, but it all added up to approximately $7,067 in Maingear's configurator.

It's worth noting that the SSD in our system, the Samsung 9100 Pro, isn't available on Maingear's site as of this writing. A Maingear rep told us that "we unfortunately had to pull that from the configurator due to supply shortages." In our pricing, we used the most expensive 2TB SSD Maingear currently offers, the XPG Mars 980 Pro.

Maingear offers the MG-1 as a quickship option with 10 prebuilt options. The base model, the MG-1 Ruby, starts with an RTX 5060 Ti, Intel Core Ultra 5 225F, 32GB of RAM, and 2TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage. The top-end MG-1 Ultimate features our CPU and GPU, but goes up to 64GB of RAM and 4TB of SSD storage. Configurator models start a bit cheaper thanks to the option for an RTX 5060.

Most gamers don't need to add the Ryzen 9950X3D2 in a gaming rig. As we found in our review of the chip, it matches the Ryzen 7 9800X3D in most games and is slightly slower than the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, a chip that is $400 less on the market and $633 less in Maingear's configurator. If you're doing some specialized data science, by all means, it may help. But for gamers, that's an easy place to save money, even on a high-end rig.

Custom MG-1 builds are eligible for Maingear's BYO RAM program. So if you have a few DIMMs just sitting around or you happen to find some on a miracle of a sale, you could send them to Maingear for integration into the system.

Bottom Line

The new MG-1, in a larger case with more airflow than its predecessor, can offer seriously strong performance if you choose the right parts. The Ryzen 9950X3D2 and RTX 5090 tore through our benchmark suite. As usual, Maingear delivers on the boutique build front. I couldn't manage cables this nicely if I tried. I wouldn't mind if the case were a bit more heavy duty, but it does the job well enough with the exception of its paltry front panel port selection.

Maingear offers a ton of configurable options, so you can really make this PC your own. That does, however, make it tough to compare the fact that you could get this same case with an RTX 5060 and an RTX 5090. Some issues I have at $7,000 aren't a problem when you spend $2,000.

You buy this type of PC so that it feels like you built it, even if you didn't. This one is built more nicely than I could, with power I could only dream of. But I might pick a slightly different case with more ports if I had the money to buy a PC with specs this nice.

With AMD releasing its flagship Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition CPU, Alienware has become the first PC brand to debut the chip on its Area-51 gaming desktop. According to the company, it is the most powerful Alienware desktop that they have ever built powered by an AMD processor. Naturally, it doesn't come cheap with pricing starting at $4,449.99 for a config with AMD's new chip, but one has to consider the $900 MSRP of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2.

• Check out the Alienware Area-51 from Dell.com

In addition to the existing Ryzen 9000 series configurations, the Area-51 desktop lineup will offer the new Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 CPU, AMD’s most ambitious consumer desktop CPU. It features 16 cores, 32 threads, and a massive cache of 208MB, making it one of the best CPUs for gaming. The CPU will be paired with a standard ATX Alienware X870E motherboard available with up to 64GB of dual-channel DDR5 XMP memory at 6400 MT/s. For graphics, Alienware sticks with Nvidia’s RTX 5000 series, ranging from the RTX 5070 to the RTX 5090. Storage options include 1TB/2TB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen 5 SSD or a 4TB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD. Depending on the configuration, the Area-51 can be paired with either an 850W Gold or 1500W Platinum power supply, along with options for a 240mm or 360mm AIO liquid cooler.

We recently tested the Area-51 with top-of-the-line Intel and AMD configurations and found it to be a noteworthy improvement over the company’s previous gaming desktop offerings. It features a rather large 80-liter chassis measuring 22.4 x 24.04 x 9.12 inches (569 x 610.5 x 231.6 mm), with a ‘Lunar Silver’ finish and a glass side panel to showcase the internals. It uses standard PC hardware, meaning you’re not fully restricted to OEM parts if you plan to upgrade in the future. However, you may need to purchase a $35 adapter kit for the included AlienwareFX daughterboard.

There’s plenty of I/O available, including two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, and dedicated microphone-in and line-out ports at the front. At the back, there are two USB 4.0 Type-C ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, five USB 2.0 Type-A ports, and additional line-in, line-out, and SPDIF audio ports. The system also includes a Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5G Ethernet controller, along with a MediaTek Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless networking chip.

As expected from any Alienware product, there’s a large RGB light ring around the air intake, along with additional lighting inside the case. Apart from the included CPU liquid cooler, the case comes with dual 180mm fans at the front and two 140mm fans at the bottom.

The base configuration, priced at $4,299.99, includes a 1TB SSD, 32GB of RAM, an Nvidia RTX 5070, an 850W PSU, and a 240mm liquid cooler. That said, Alienware’s system configurator recommends opting for the 1500W PSU and 360mm liquid cooler combo, which bumps the price up to $4,449.99. At the top end, a fully maxed-out configuration can go all the way up to $7,049.99.

PC manufacturers are fully embracing massive cases for the flagship gaming desktops. HP is clearly no exception with the Omen Max 45L. This is a machine that brashly makes its presence known and looks good while doing it.

With three 120mm fans up front, a honking 1,200-watt power supply in the bottom of the chassis, room for a flagship graphics card from AMD or Nvidia, and HP's dedicated Cryo Chamber that sits atop the chassis, it's no wonder the Omen Max 45L is so large and in charge.

The Omen Max 45L aims to dance with the best gaming PCs, so it should come as no surprise that our review unit packs an AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D processor, 64GB of DDR5-6000, and a GeForce RTX 5090. But that will cost you — our review unit has a $6,499.99 price tag.

Design of the HP Omen Max 45L

The 45-liter Omen Max measures 8.03 x 18.50 x 21.85 inches and weighs 49.82 pounds. Still, removing the sample unit from the box was a relatively simple affair, as HP ships the Omen Max 45L in a "lift-off top" shipping box held in place by four black plastic retaining clips along the sides (near the base of the box).

The chassis is a matte-black aluminum affair with a glass front and a glass side panel, providing an uninterrupted view inside the chassis. The glass front panel is adorned with a large "OMEN" logo printed in white, along with a view of the three vertically stacked 120 mm RGB intake fans that sit behind a large dust filter. There is a narrow gap along the sides between the front panel and the chassis where air comes in to feed the fans. There's also a tiny AMD Ryzen sticker in the bottom right corner of the front glass panel, which mars an otherwise classy design.

Looking inside the case, you'll find tidy cable management and plenty of RGB lighting to dazzle the eye. The liquid cooler features a circular LCD with an RGB ring around its perimeter. Inside that ring, you'll find CPU and GPU temperatures. A single 120 mm RGB exhaust fan matches the color schemes of the three front intake fans, and the two 32GB Fury DDR5-6000 sticks have their own RGB effects, topping each module.

The CPU radiator is mounted in a dedicated housing at the top of the chassis, leaving an air gap between it and the rest of the case. HP calls this the "Cryo Chamber" because it is isolated from the interior of the chassis and has access to fresh outside air. According to HP, this setup results in up to a 7-degree Celsius reduction in CPU temperature versus competing solutions under similar loads. There are three additional 120 mm fans mounted at the bottom of the Cryo Chamber that push air upward over the radiator.

Although the Omen Max 45L is a big system, it is dwarfed by the Alienware Area-51, which measures 22.4 x 24.04 x 9.12 inches and weighs 76.1 pounds. The Aurora R16 comes in at 18.05 x 16.5 x 7.76 inches, while the Corsair Vengeance i7500 measures 18.3 x 17.8 x 9.1 inches.

HP Omen Max 45L Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability of the HP Omen Max 45L

When it comes to the easy-to-access top ports, the Omen Max 45L is well-equipped. There are two USB-A (5 Gbps) ports and a single USB-C (10 Gbps) port for connecting thumb drives or other peripherals you need to plug in quickly, without getting on your knees and fiddling with the rear I/O panel. Also up top is a single headphone/microphone combo jack.

Our review unit uses a custom HP 8E55 motherboard with an AMD X870 chipset. The port allotment is plentiful, with four USB-A (480 Mbps) ports, two USB-A (5 Gps) ports, one USB-C (10 Gbps) port, and one Thunderbolt 4 port. There's also a 2.5 GbE port and audio ports. There's also a built-in MediaTek Wi-Fi 7 adapter and Bluetooth 5.4.

The toolless chassis makes it easy to get into the Omen Max. There's a button located above the glass side panel labeled “Internal Access” that you press. Once you push it in, the panel pivots outward, and you can then lift it out of the chassis. The same setup is repeated for the panel on the opposite side of the chassis.

Although HP uses its own motherboard, you can fit any standard ATX motherboard in the chassis if you wish to upgrade in the future. The 8E55 includes four DIMM slots, two of which were populated in our review unit, for a total of 64GB of DDR5-6000 memory.

The motherboard features a single PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and a PCIe 4.0 x4 slot. The Omen Max 45L comes with two M.2 storage slots onboard, and both are filled with 2TB PCIe 4.0 Samsung SSDs. The M.2 Gen 5.0 SSD slot is located above the x16 connector (with a heatsink for the SSD), while the Gen 4.0 SSD is located below (no heatsink here). Accessing the Gen 5 slot is possible without removing the graphics card, although it’s a tight fit for your hands. The Gen 4 slot, however, requires removing the graphics card, which is made more laborious by the retention brackets that must be removed first.

HP uses a modular 1,200W ATX 3.1 PSU, which you can swap out in the future should your power needs increase.

With the panel removed on the opposite side of the chassis, you can install a 3.5-inch hard drive.

Gaming and Graphics on the HP Omen Max 45L

Our Omen Max 45L review unit features an AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D processor, 64GB of DDR5-6000 memory, and a GeForce RTX 5090, which are definitely flagship-worthy specs.

We pitted the system against two variants of the Alienware Area-51 (one with a Core Ultra 9 285K and one with a Ryzen 9 9950X3D, both of which include an RTX 5090). The other two systems that were thrown into the mix include the Alienware Aurora R16 and Corsair Vengeance i7500, which feature Core i9-14900K processors and RTX 4090 GPUs.

I booted up Battlefield 6 to get my butt handed to me on a dust-covered plate. Battlefield 6 is a well-optimized game, and an RTX 5090 can push upwards of 300 frames per second depending on the resolution. However, I tested the Omen Max 45L at 5120 x 1440 resolution with the Overkill graphics option enabled with DLSS 4.5 in Quality mode. I averaged between 160 and 180 FPS with these settings and noticed only a low hum from the system and GPU fans.

With the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (Highest setting), the Omen Max 45L cranked 329 FPS at 1080p and 170 FPS at 4K. The 1080p performance was over 30 FPS higher than the next-closest Vengeance i7500, while the 4K performance was more in line with the two Area-51 systems.

The Omen Max 45L again stretched its legs at 1080p in Cyberpunk 2077 (Ray Tracing Ultra settings), hitting 146 FPS, a 21 FPS improvement over the second-place Vengeance i7500. The Omen Max eked out 50 FPS at 4K resolution, putting it slightly ahead of the competition.

We once again saw the Omen Max 45L punching above its weight class in the CPU-intensive Far Cry 6. It delivers 187 FPS at 1080p resolution, nearly 30 FPS higher than the Vengeance i7500. Shifting to 4K resolution, the Omen Max 45L actually found itself in that rear of the pack at 111 FPS. The fastest among the assembled group was the Area-51 (AMD) at 128 FPS.

Our Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium settings) benchmark allowed the Omen Max 45L to reach 217 FPS at 1080p, putting it slightly ahead of the Vengeance i7500 (209 FPS). At 4K resolution, it also took top honors with 124 FPS.

Borderlands 3 is another CPU-heavy title, and it was the only gaming benchmark where the Omen Max 45L didn't lead the charts at 1080p resolution. It delivered 248 FPS at 1080p (tied for last place) and 185 FPS at 4K resolution (the best among the group).

The Metro Exodus benchmark remains our go-to for stress testing gaming desktops. After running the Omen Max 45 through 15 loops, it averaged 157.68 FPS.

The AMD Zen 5 cores averaged 4.93 GHz and measured 49.8 Celsius. The GPU clocked in at 2,469.77 MHz and measured 48.2 C. During the stress test, the fans slowly ramped, but were never louder than a low hum.

Productivity Performance on the HP Omen Max 45L

The Omen Max 45L is well-stacked to handle productivity work, given that it's paired with a Ryzen 9 9900X3D, 64GB of RAM, and two 2TB SSDs.

Starting with Geekbench 6, the Omen Max 45L was second only to the Area-51 with a Ryzen 9 9950X3D in single-core score (3,253 against Alienware's 3,384). However, the standings were quite different for the multi-core score, as the system fell to last place (18,394) primarily due to its shortfall in assembled CPU cores.

When it came to our file transfer test, the Omen Max 45L came out guns blazing, reaching 2,645.53 MBps while transferring 25GB of data. This put it well ahead of all the competing systems, with the exception of the Area-51 (AMD), which scored a stellar 3,414.29 MBps.

Our Handbrake benchmark relies heavily on multi-threaded performance when transcoding a 4K video to 1080p. The Omen Max 45L managed a third-place showing (2:08), placing it behind the two Area-51 systems, which completed the task in under two minutes.

Software and Warranty on the HP Omen Max 45L

The Omen Max 45L comes preloaded with a lot of add-on software with the Windows 11 Pro install; some of it good, some of it that we could do without. There's a slew of HP utilities, including HP, HP Documentation, HP PC Hardware Diagnostics, HP Privacy Settings, HP Smart, HP Support Assistant, and HP System Event Utility. Quite frankly, most of these little applets could have been combined into one.

McAfee Online Protection is installed by default and provides some nifty perks, such as a Scam Detector (protection against email, text, and video scams), an integrated VPN, and identity monitoring, in addition to the usual antivirus protection.

But probably the most important piece of added software you'll interface with regularly is the Omen Gaming Hub. This is the centralized app that lets you control and configure the Omen Max 45L, along with supported accessories such as HyperX keyboards, mice, and headsets. You can capture system vitals, adjust performance profiles, enable the Power Supply Status Monitor (which captures data such as temperature, load, efficiency, etc.), and control lighting for the RGB fans.

In addition, the Omen Gaming Hub lets you control the LCD on the AIO unit. By default, it shows CPU and GPU temperature. But you can also allow it to show other system vitals (fan speeds, storage levels, etc.), display a static image, or even show the time (among other options). The Omen Gaming Hub even offers Omen AI, which automatically applies optimal performance settings for popular games like Fortnite, League of Legends, and Marvel Rivals.Omen Audio Control lets you adjust speaker/headphone volume, along with noise cancellation and equalizer settings.

The Omen Max 45L ships with a 1-year limited hardware warranty and one year of limited technical support.

HP Omen Max 45L Configurations

There are four primary configurations for the Omen Max 45L, starting with a Ryzen 7 9700X, Radeon RX 9070 XT, 32GB DDR5-6000, a 1TB SSD, and an 850W modular PSU, priced at $2,544.99. You can get the basic configuration, swapping out the AMD GPU for a GeForce RTX 5070, priced at $2,534.99.

If you want more CPU horsepower under the hood, adding a Ryzen 7 9800X3D (while keeping all other specs the same) takes the price to $3,254.99.

Our system is the top-of-the-line configuration, and you pay dearly for it. Our review unit is equipped with a Ryzen 9 9900X3D, 64GB of DDR5-6000, a GeForce RTX 5090, dual 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSDs, and a 1,200W PSU for $6,499.99.

Bottom Line

The HP Omen Max 45L is a highly capable gaming system that casts a long shadow with its towering appearance. With its Ryzen 9 9900X3D chip and RTX 5090 GPU onboard, the Omen Max 45L nearly ran the tables at 1080p. However, the 5090 is better suited for 4K gaming, and Omen Max 45L proved strong enough to lead the pack at 4K or at least remain highly competitive.

Our flagship configuration was equipped with two 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSDs, which delivered excellent data transfer speeds, and networking capabilities are plentiful with an onboard 2.5 GbE LAN and Wi-Fi 7. At the center of it all is the Omen Gaming Hub, which is your one-stop shop for RGB, performance profiles, game optimizations, and system monitoring.

It’s hard not to be impressed with the Omen Max 45L, as it excels at excess – and that is especially true of its price tag. As configured, our review unit tipped the scales at $6,499.99. The Alienware Area-51 we tested in November with similar specs (albeit with a Ryzen 9 9950X3D) cost $5,749.99. However, in this age of rising RAM and NAND costs, the same Area-51 system (with 4TB of storage to match the Omen Max 45L) will run you $6,249.99.

Either system will satiate your needs for 4K gaming, but you’re going to need a whole lot of cash to secure one.

The same enthusiast who transformed an Xbox One S console into a full-blown gaming PC has come back and done the same thing to Microsoft's latest Xbox Series X console. YouTuber PhaseTech published a video showing how he completed his Series X PC mod from start to finish, going over parts selection and the 3D printed parts he created to make the Xbox chassis compatible with the new components.

For part selection, PhasedTech opted to use Intel's NUC 12 Extreme PCIe compute card, equipped with a Core i7-12700, 32GB of DDR4, and a 1TB NVMe SSD. The YouTuber initially wanted to go with a Mini-ITX solution, but found the Xbox Series X clamshell is not wide enough to support ITX boards. At just 4.75 inches thick, the NUC 12 Extreme is almost 2 inches thinner than a Mini ITX board, making it more than thin enough to fit inside the Series X.

The rest of the build was comprised of a low-profile Gigabyte RTX 5060 graphics card and a 600W Flex ATX power supply. This combination allowed the YouTuber to fit the power supply above the graphics card in the Xbox chassis with height to spare. A full-height graphics card would have made this configuration impossible and forced the YouTuber to use an external power supply.

The chassis was modded to provide the necessary mounting points to connect the compute card, graphics card, PSU, and a 120mm cooling fan to the chassis. The YouTuber created a plethora of 3D brackets to provide reinforcement and hook all four components to the Xbox shell, and created a 3D printed back panel for the console featuring all the necessary cutouts to support the rear I/O.

Several of the brackets were made to prop up the compute card and graphics card in the baseboard and prevent both cards from bending inside their respective PCIe slots. The rest were used to support the 120mm cooling fan, PSU, and DVD-ROM drive. The DVD drive was salvaged from the real Xbox Series X internals and modded to work with the PC. Work also had to be done to make the front power button compatible with the NUC.

After creating all the necessary brackets to connect all of the components together. The YouTuber put the computer board, baseboard, GPU, power supply, and DVD-ROM drive together, then dropped and secured the components into the Xbox clamshell, and finally secured the 120mm exhaust fan at the end. PhaseTech reported good performance from the system after booting it up, with temperatures hovering around 75C for the CPU and GPU.

The project demonstrates what is possible with a small-form-factor build when a dedicated enthusiast is armed with a 3D printer. The Xbox Series X chassis is not the smallest computer chassis in the world, but it is one of the smallest that someone has been able to install a full-fledged PC into, including an integrated PSU and DVD-ROM drive (for context, the Corsair One i500 is 3.62 x 1.42 x 5.87 bigger than the Series X). PhaseTech's build serves as a sneak peek of what Microsoft's future Xbox consoles will be capable of. The company has already confirmed that Project Helix will be capable of playing Xbox and PC games.

Shopping for a gaming PC can burn a huge hole in your wallet, especially given the ongoing price increases in memory, SSDs, and GPUs. An easy way to tackle inflated pricing is to opt for a prebuilt, and in one such case, a lucky Redditor managed to find what can only be described as daylight robbery. As per a post by u/tdcdude17 on the PC Master Race sub-reddit, an iBuyPower gaming PC with high-end specs was picked up for just $1,000 from Costco, making it an exceptional deal given the hardware on offer.

The specifications of the prebuilt PC include an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which is currently one of the best gaming CPUs on the market and costs over $400 on its own. It is paired with 32GB of DDR5 memory, a 2TB SSD, and a dual-fan Nvidia RTX 5070 graphics card from MSI. The PC also includes a 360mm AIO liquid cooler, a basic keyboard and mouse combo, and a pretty solid mid-tower case with tempered glass finish on the front, side, and top. There are no details for the power supply, but the thread does confirm that the original cost of this iBuyPowerPC is $1,899.99.

Steal or steal? from r/pcmasterrace

So how did u/tdcdude17 manage to get it for $900 less? It turns out the Costco store they visited had the prebuilt gaming PC listed as the last display unit. Retailers often discount such units to clear out inventory and make room for newer products. However, it’s worth noting that display units may not be in brand-new condition and could be missing original packaging or accessories. In fact, the Reddit thread includes a photo showing the PC strapped into the back seat of a car without its original box.

Finds like this may sound too good to be true, but there have been a few similar instances in the past. We spotted a similar instance last year where a Reddit user managed to score a high-end gaming PC featuring an Intel Core i9-14900KS, an RTX 4070 Ti Super, and 64GB of DDR5 memory for just $600 from a pawn shop, despite the system being valued at over $2,500. The interesting bit is that the memory kit alone was reportedly worth close to the purchase price of the entire PC.

In another case, a buyer in the UK snagged a flagship prebuilt PC worth nearly $5,000 for around $2,400 at Costco. The system included top-tier components such as an RTX 5090, a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 64GB of DDR5 memory, and a 2TB SSD, essentially offering premium hardware at nearly half the expected price.

IDC on Thursday sharply slashed its expectations for the PC and tablet markets, citing memory shortages, rising prices for 3D NAND, DRAM, and other components, and intensifying supply chain disruptions amid the AI sector boom. While unit shipments are expected to decline significantly year-over-year, higher average selling prices (ASPs) are projected to push total market value slightly upward.

The firm now expects global PC shipments to drop 11.3% in 2026 compared to 2025, a steep revision from the -2.4% decline projected in November 2025 and -8.9% in January 2026. In absolute numbers, this means PC sales will decline by 32.17 million units, from 284.7 million in 2025 to 252.53 million in 2026. To put the 32.17 million PC number into context: Apple shipped 25.6 million computers last year compared to 41.1 million systems for Dell.

Tablet volumes are also set to contract, and IDC forecasts shipments to fall 7.6% this year. Last year, vendors shipped 151.9 million tablets (up 5% compared to the previous year), with Apple leading the pack by a significant margin. If the new IDC forecast holds, then this year the market will decline by 11.54 million to 140.36 million systems. To put the number in context, Apple sold 17.1 million iPads in Q4 2025, while Samsung sold just 6.4 million units.

Even though unit shipments of PCs and tablets will decline, IDC expects market revenue to increase due to rising device prices. The firm estimates that the PC market will expand by 1.6% in value to $274 billion in 2026, while the tablet segment will grow by 3.9% to $66.8 billion.

"The era of bargain-priced PCs and tablets is behind us for now, as rising ASPs and component costs shift the market’s balance of power," said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "Memory shortages will persist well into 2027. While we anticipate some easing of prices beginning in 2028, the market is unlikely to return to the pricing levels seen in 2025. Instead, we expect a new normal defined by structurally higher ASPs and a corresponding softening in long-term demand."

IDC noted that, at the time it compiled its forecast, the conflict in the Middle East had not yet escalated to its current level, adding another source of risk for global technology supply chains and economic development. Therefore, the analysts may revise their forecast downwards.

"The overall tech industry, as well as many others, continues to face uncontrollable headwinds that, when compounded, result in massive disruption," said Ryan Reith, group vice president, Devices and Consumer. "The lists of industry and geopolitical events that continue to grow is making decision‑making — and even survival in some sectors — nearly impossible. What has turned all of this from a million‑dollar question into a trillion‑dollar question is the complete uncertainty around when these pressures will subside."

In my previous Rising Phoenix build, I ran a disclaimer that I was only here to stir the pot. Well, I’m back again, and guess what I’m here to do? For this latest build, I’m going to be breaking quite a few unwritten rules, but I’ll explain why. Some rules were broken intentionally, and others were broken for us.

This time around, we’re building a productivity-focused rig, featuring no AMD or Nvidia, and it’ll be white!

A brief word about builds at Tom’s Hardware

A few months back, we published the Rising Phoenix, a gaming rig with a small twist, to kickstart the series. And for this build, we’re going with a “Life Support” theme. When I first started collecting parts and writing this, it was October, and I thought this was a fitting theme for a spooky build – but I got buried in Tom’s Hardware Premium Stout Owl build, and here we are in a whole different year, but the prices of RAM and storage are certainly still scary.

The aim of this build series is to inspire creativity, to build something a little more unusual, with another goal being to help you unlock your inner artist and turn your PC into something truly yours, but still something sensible and achievable. We aren’t trying to offer the best value per dollar for these systems, but to showcase hardware that pairs well together, both visually and practically.

For the best value propositions, have a look at our Best Builds page.

Life Support

For this feature build, we’re not focused on gaming at all, but rather, a productivity-first rig. With the theme Life Support, this is a PC that’s supposed to look like something you might find it in a medical laboratory. Or, you know, something used as a prop PC in a bad-taste Hollywood horror lab flick where the set designer is somewhat up to speed with custom PC hardware.

Intel Core Ultra 7 265K

If you think laboratory, AMD doesn’t come to mind. Intel does (or at least it does to me). Intel may currently be lagging behind in gaming performance, but when it’s productivity you’re after, Arrow Lake CPUs pack a massive punch.

The Core Ultra 7 265K features 20 CPU cores, with 8 performance cores and 12 efficiency cores. Clock speeds can spike to 5.50 GHz, all while maintaining very good efficiency, especially at partial and idle loads.

What’s better is that it’s currently priced around $300, and if gaming is not your priority, it offers a heap of CPU power for that money.

ASRock Intel Arc B580 Steel Legend

Sticking to the theme, for this build we’re going with an Intel B580 GPU. It’s a bit of an underdog GPU, which sounds strange if you consider that it’s made by Intel, but the chipmaker is quite new to making modern discrete graphics cards (discrete: not baked in as part of the CPU).

What’s interesting about the Intel Arc series GPUs is that they tackle a segment of the GPU market that AMD and Nvidia have been largely ignoring. This is a graphics card that is also priced around $300. And with Intel’s XESS upscaling, it packs a solid gaming punch for the money. What’s more important for this build, though, is that with Intel Quick Sync, it makes for a fantastic video encoder if you’re into video editing. And 12 GB of GDDR6 memory is especially generous at this price point.

ASRock Z890 Steel Legend

If you’re looking for a value-oriented motherboard to pair with a high-performance Arrow Lake chip, the ASRock Z890 Steel Legend offers fantastic connectivity with tons of room for future expansion.

Kingston Fury Beast RGB 64 GB (2x 32GB) DDR5-6000

This is where the largest point of contempt comes in with this build. At the time I sampled this memory, the DRAM crisis hadn’t hit yet, and it was a memory kit that cost about $250. At this price, it was a no-brainer to opt for 64 GB in a productivity build. Unfortunately, it’s a kit that today sells for a painfully pricey $1349, and although I’m happy that it matches the design language of the motherboard, at this price, it’s tough sell, and it massively changes the total build cost of this system.

For those who are into virtualization, data analysis, or video editing, it may still be worth justifying a 64 GB kit, but you may be better off hunting down a 32 GB kit without RGB from the Best Memory page to save some money.

Kingston Renegade G5 2TB

Although the Kingston Renegade Fury G5 is one of the Best SSDs and we gave it a glowing review, it suffers from a similar issue that DDR5 does: It has become quite expensive. Priced at roughly $500 currently, I can only recommend it to those who know they need 2 TB and a drive that properly saturates the PCIe 5.0 NVMe bus.

If that is what you need, though, the Renegade Fury G5 is a beast of an SSD – it’s got a shockingly high durability rating. It’s also efficient, but most importantly, it just writes, and writes, and writes – this is not an SSD that fills up the cache and comes to a crawl – it’s an SSD that handles sustained large writes with ease. This is an SSD that would go to waste as a system and game drive. It’s the kind of SSD you want to write large datasets to, raw video footage, work off, and then clear it up again at the end of the day, over and over again.

Fractal Design Epoch

For the case of this Life Support system, we decided to work with Fractal Design’s new Epoch chassis. It’s affordable at $110, well-built, and its charmingly simple elegance serves it well for fitting into the theme.

The mesh intake at the front ensures great cooling, and it’s got plenty of space for building in. With top-mounted IO, it also serves well as a case for placing on the floor.

Phanteks Glacier One D30 X2

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is a beast of a productivity chip, but it can run quite hot when fully taxed for long periods. As such, a powerful liquid cooler is almost a requirement, and Phanteks’ Glacier One D30 X2 is one that’s more than up to the task. With a copper cold plate, aluminum radiator, and three D30 spinners, this is a CPU cooler that can tame the 265K without breaking a sweat.

The D30 fans are an RGB variant of the T30’s, which are 5mm thicker than most other 120mm fans, giving them loads of airflow debit at low RPMs.

The cooler’s CPU block also comes with a fan inside it, which blows some air to the area surrounding the socket to cool the VRM circuitry, memory, and the primary SSD.

be quiet! Pure Power 12M 850W

850 W might be more than necessary for this PC, but power supplies run at their most efficient around 50% duty. Load up the CPU and GPU with typical workloads, and you’ll sit just shy of this spot.

Be Quiet’s Pure Power 12M series PSUs come with modular connectivity, and generally run quietly and reliably, year after year. The company also backs their PSUs with a 5-year warranty, and at $110, is there anything else you really want from a power supply?

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The first thing I like to do when starting a build is drop the CPU into its socket. It takes just a few seconds, and with the CPU installed, the socket is no longer susceptible to damage. Of course, sockets do come with a plastic cover, but they come off easily, and with how notoriously delicate LGA sockets are, I prefer to drop the CPU in early while I still have space to work.

While prepping the motherboard, I also drop in the memory, ensuring the correct slots are used. Check your motherboard manual if you aren’t sure which slots should be populated first if you’re only using.

And the SSD is installed. Remember to take the film off the thermal pads included with the motherboard so that the SSD can properly transfer its heat into the heatsink. Heat never used to be an issue with older SSDs and typical workloads, but PCIe 5.0 drives can generate quite a bit of heat under sustained load and will suffer from thermal throttling without proper cooling.

With that done, it’s time to install the motherboard in the case.

Fractal Design’s Epoch RGB comes with three RGB fans installed in the front. Because we’re using a 360mm cooler with Phanteks’ D30 fans, these need to be moved.

We move them into the top and rear exhaust positions.

We then install the Glacier One D30 X2’s radiator into position, connect up the three D30 fans with the included bridging connectors for tidy “wireless” cable management.

I quite like that these fans come with this system, as three fans each with their own RGB and PWM connectors leads to a lot more cables to manage.

We then install the Cold plate/pump combo unit. One downside to this choice of parts is that the cooler’s hoses connect to the radiator at the highest point in the loop. This means that at higher pump speeds, the small air bubble in the loop can get dragged into the coolant flow, making a bit of noise.

However, the pump is still below the tallest point in the loop, so as far as cooling performance goes, it’s a non-issue. If you don’t mind charming bubble noises occasionally, this works just fine. But if you prefer your system whisper-quiet you may be better off picking a chunky 280mm AIO for mounting at the top.

To keep this build on a reasonable budget, we opted not to buy a custom cable set, so we have to live with the black power cables. A cheap option to at least somewhat hide the black cables would be to opt for some white cable wrap.

With that done, it was time to move on to cable management.

Thankfully, that’s a breeze in a system like this. In all of about 10 minutes, all the connectors were done up, and the system was ready for its first bootup!

On to performance testing on the next page.

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Performance Testing

To compare performance of various builds we’ve set up a standard suite for comparing systems. Setting this up was done after the last build, so we don’t have a whole lot of data for comparisons, but this will come in due time. Regardless, the data below should paint a solid picture of what you can expect from this system.

The tests below are run until thermals stabilize, generally around 15 minutes for good measure, and then the temperatures and power consumption levels are recorded for 1 minute, from which their average is calculated.

In sleep mode, the PC pulls just 4 W, and we recorded a noise floor of 32.9 dBA. This is near the lower end (30 dBA) of what our meter can pick up.

By default, the ASRock software errs on the side of caution – the fans do run at lower speeds when the system is cooler, but the AIO’s pump runs at 100% unless changed by the user.

With a fan curve set up running the pump speed at 40% when CPU temperatures are low, and a slightly quieter fan curve set up, the system remains inaudible during light use and browsing. The CPU temperature sits at a cool 36° degrees C, and GPU at 51° C. The GPU’s temperature is a little higher here due to the fan-stop mode. Power consumption remains low at 88 W.

Load the system up with a 1000-shot DXO export, and power consumption rises to 198 W, with noise levels increasing only slightly to 34.1 dBA. For our previous test, using the Stout Owl, we ran the DXO export with DeepPrime 3 AI Denoising. However, this feature is not supported on Intel GPUs, so I had to pick between running the denoising on the CPU, leading to an export time of about 20 seconds per image, or removing the denoising.

This is a bit of a letdown as it meant I didn’t have a proper productivity test. But truth be told, most folks that do photo editing use Lightroom anyway, not DXO, and discrete Intel GPUs only account for a fraction of the market, so this combination is pretty rare. If you’re looking for productivity performance data, look at our CPU and GPU reviews – the tests here are meant to show thermals, acoustics, and power levels for builds, not so much performance.

Meanwhile, say you do want to fire up a game, gaming performance is surprisingly good on this system. 3DMark Speedway primarily leans on the GPU, keeping CPU temperatures friendly, while CyberPunk 2077 balances a nice load on both the CPU and GPU. With Cyberpunk running on Ultra settings, at QHD with Intel XESS on and framegen off, the system managed a framerate of 58.9 FPS in the benchmark test, which is pleasantly good considering this is only a $300 GPU.

System Power consumption sat at just 313 watts, and noise levels only rose to 34.7 dBA. Most of the noise came from the AIO, and with CPU temperatures at just 56° C, you could opt to run an even quieter curve.

Load the system up with Prime95 and Furmark simultaneously, and things, of course, get toasty and noisy. The system will draw 565 W while producing 43.2 dBA to cool itself, but no real-world workload ever comes close to this.

Manually setting all the fans to their maximum setting pushes noise levels to 47.9 dBA, but this offers no thermal benefit.

A great PC, were it not for the DRAM crisis

If you’re in the market for a PC for work and only play games once in a while, building priorities tend to change. AMD might be the front-runner in gaming performance, but Intel has the lead in productivity performance, and Intel’s chips also consume significantly less power at idle or partial system loads. If you’re a gamer and you load your PC up with a game the moment it boots, go with AMD. But if gaming is a secondary purpose and you’re not going to pop in a high-end GPU either, Intel’s Arrow Lake chips offer good value for money.

With that out of the way, the Life Support system offers fantastic performance when it comes to efficiency and noise levels, without needing to splurge on Noctua-level components.

The biggest problem with this build currently is pricing – when I selected the components months ago, this was a $1700 PC. Today, it will set you back over $3,000, and that difference is almost entirely down to the cost of the memory and the SSD. As much as I like the Kingston parts, I don't seem to be alone in this, as they seem to be in particularly high demand. Dropping to 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage, and shopping around for good deals can, of course, save some serious cash.

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Thanks to voracious demand from AI hyperscalers, PC part prices are on a steep rise – not just RAM, but also SSDs and hard drives, as well as GPUs. And at the same time, availability seems to be waning on multiple components, with seemingly no end in sight — unless you can somehow see into 2027 or beyond. So you probably don't want to replace your key components any time soon, as long as they are good enough to get you by.

I'm certainly hoping nothing happens to the RTX 4090, 64GB of RAM, and the Ryzen 9 7950X in my main system in the next year or two. Or at least until we know a lot more about what comes after Intel's Nova Lake, and AMD's Zen 6 on the consumer side, which also might be around the time that we'll be seeing new gaming GPUs from Nvidia.

So what can you do to help make sure your components last you a couple more years and beyond? Plenty, including the more obvious stuff like making sure your case and fans are relatively clean and working as expected, and your PC is plugged into a name-brand surge protector (I've personally had good luck with this model from Anker).

But you also should consider replacing the older supporting hardware that hasn't also gone up in price, like ageing or sub-par power supplies, or older coolers that may no longer be working at their peak capabilities. It isn't exactly exciting to invest $100-$200 in often-neglected parts that won't give you a higher frame rate or faster computing. But doing so now might save you from having to replace something much more expensive down the line – or something that may even be hard to buy at short notice.

Check the temps of your CPU and GPU during a stress test

Use something like HWinfo during a stress test to check the max and sustained temperatures of both your CPU and GPU, and compare those to the published or generally accepted TJ Max (thermal junction max) temperatures for your chip. If you have a recent-gen high-end CPU, it will likely quickly hit its TJ Max temperature and throttle on a taxing test. This is normal, and generally shouldn't be a concern if most of what you are doing with your PC is gaming, as gaming doesn't generally tax the CPU as heavily as highly threaded applications.

That said, if your CPU or GPU is often hovering at high temperatures during, say, a gaming benchmark, you should probably consider upgrading your cooler and / or case fans. The CPU cooler, logically, will have more of an impact on your CPU temperature, but if your GPU is often warm, make sure your intake and exhaust fans are oriented correctly, and then consider adding more airflow (more fans — or more and better fans) aimed at your graphics card. CPUs and GPUs are designed to handle a fair amount of heat, but generally, keeping their temperatures lower should lead to greater longevity.

You can also consider getting some of the best thermal paste, and re-pasting your CPU for lower temperatures and better sustained performance, which should cost between $5 and $20. You could also consider disassembling and re-applying pads or paste to your graphics card. But if you don't have experience on that front, it's a much more involved job that involves disassembling your card. And unless your card is several years old or your model is prone to cooling issues, the pre-installed thermal paste on most graphics cards should be fine.

Did you carry over your AIO cooler from a previous build? Replace it with a new model or a simpler air cooler.

Even if your CPU isn't getting noticeably warm, if you carried an AIO cooler over from a previous build or it's been in your existing system for five or more years, you might want to consider replacing it – or at least keeping a close eye on your CPU temps. Because even in these closed-loop coolers, coolant tends to evaporate, leaving you with sub-optimal coolant levels. And mixed metals and other issues can lead to coolant gunking.

So if you want to make sure your system and its CPU keep running as expected for the next few years, consider buying one of the best CPU coolers we've tested. AIOs are more affordable than they used to be. But if you want an affordable cooler without any of the coolant or pump issues involved with AIOs, a great air cooler like the Thermalright Royal Praetor 130 should serve you well through multiple builds and costs less than $50.

Are you using an old or poor-quality power supply? Get a new one before it takes out other hardware.

A good ATX power supply can last through multiple builds, but those internal components do wear out over years of regular use. And older or poor-quality power supplies can and occasionally do fail catastrophically, taking other expensive components out with them. So if you're keeping your existing system longer than expected and your power supply is getting on in years or isn't from the most reputable brand, it's a good idea to consider replacing it. The good news is that, at least for the moment, prices haven't risen dramatically on the best power supplies we've tested.

Cooler Master's MWE Gold V3 is one of our current top picks up to 850W, and sells for about $100 at that capacity. If you need more power for your GPU or other high-draw components, the Be Quiet Dark Power 13 is excellent, but it costs significantly more and is longer, so it won't fit in as many cases.

Make sure your SSD isn't about to wear out

If available, check your boot drive's toolbox software to find out how many terabytes written (TBW) the drive has listed, versus how much it is rated for. This can also be checked via HWinfo, though it lists your drive's "Drive Remainging Life" as a percentage. While the drive isn't likely to suddenly die once you're past its rating, that is one of the typical stipulations for the warranty ending (the other being years since purchase). If you have a drive that's getting close to its rated write endurance and you have other drives available, you might want to move your commonly used programs – or even the OS – off of that drive and onto another disk if you have one.

It's not exactly easy to move your OS from one drive to another, but an SSD cloner makes that task a lot easier (as I discovered last year when helping out a family member with their cramped boot drive). And these days, spending less than $50 for a tool to move your OS could be a lot cheaper than having to buy a brand-new 2TB or 4TB SSD. Also, if you don't have your irreplaceable data backed up somewhere, getting it off an SSD that may be on its last legs may be more important than any component price increases. WD's My Passport external hard drive might not be fast, but the 4TB model is still surprisingly affordable at $125 (and the max-capacity 6TB model is $185). I personally swore off hard drives years ago as much-faster SSDs became more affordable, but it's hard to argue against a $125 4TB hard drive for backing up essential data when most speedy 4TB SSDs cost close to four times that much.

Clean the fan filters and fans on your PC

Of course, one of the most basic PC maintenance tasks is making sure your case fans and the dust filters on your case aren't clogged up with crud. You can do that a number of ways, including old-school canned air. But you could also pick up a USB-rechargeable duster, which I've found extremely useful for blowing out fans, as well as cleaning keyboards and electronics. Just be aware that these devices can be very strong, and can damage the fragile components on parts like motherboards, as well as creating static discharge that could kill anything from your GPU, to RAM, or anything else. So make sure your system is powered off (preferably unplugged), and you're grounded, particularly if you live in a low-moisture environment.

Cautious users may also want to stick to just blowing out case fans. So long as your case has filters on the intake area, the interior shouldn't get that dusty anyway. But if your GPU is grimy, you might just want to physically remove it from your case and lightly wipe the fans and shroud down with a lightly damp cloth. But for most users, the intake and exhaust fans should be the primary concern in terms of airflow. And so long as you don't slam the nozzle of your blower up against the blades of fast-spinning fans (again, make sure your PC is powered off before blowing it out), blowing the dust from your fans shouldn't cause much concern.

Consider a cheap GPU support bracket to take the load off your x16 slot

If you've been getting by for years without any kind of GPU support, you might be fine continuing as is. But if you have a large card and you even have to occasionally move your system from one room to another, some basic sort of GPU support is worth investing in. If you have a 3D printer, you can make your own, but I bought this $6 GPU support screw in 2023 and it's been holding up my 1080 Ti nicely in its old age. Just check to see if you might need a longer support, as this one is adjustable between 72 and 117mm.

Silverstone launched its retro beige FLP02 desktop PC case in 2025, and Maingear is a line of pre-built PCs that leverage the nostalgia these cases evoke. The custom PC builder calls this lineup Retro98, and it features four different models starting at $2,499. The most affordable option is already quite formidable, sporting an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K CPU paired with an Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU, 32GB of DDR5 memory, and a 2TB SSD.

• Get the Retro98a at Maingear
• Get the Retro98 | 5090 at Maingear
• Get the Retro98 | 5080 at Maingear
• Get the Retro98 | 5070 at Maingear

But if you want to go all-in on performance and style, the $9,799 Retro98a is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, an Nvidia RTX 5090, 64GB DDR5 RAM, and a 4TB SSD, and features a custom water loop to deliver maximum cooling. The coolant reservoir for the top-end pre-built is located in the 5.25-inch drive bays. At the same time, Maingear also used the classic “ketchup and mustard” color scheme for the braided power cables, reminiscent of old desktop builds from the late ‘90s and early aughts, while still avoiding the cable spaghetti you’ll usually find in them.

Maingear Retro98 Specifications

Just like the desktops of yore, the FLP02 case used in the Retro98 PCs includes a classic rocker switch for power, key lock, reset, and turbo buttons, along with a digital LED display. The power switch, reset button, and key lock still function as before, but according to Silverstone, the digital LED display now shows the PWM fans' duty cycle, while the turbo button sets the fan speed to maximum. The front grille houses two 120mm front intakes, and there is a single 120mm fan for the rear exhaust. More importantly, the 360mm radiator with three 120mm fans sits right at the top of the case.

Maingear is offering a limited run of these classic desktops: it will release 32 units of the Retro98 AIO models and just 6 custom-loop Retro98a systems, for a total of 38 units. So, if you want to bring back the nostalgia of Windows 95 while still getting the performance you’d come to expect from a high-end desktop gaming PC from 2026, you should get one of these units as soon as you can.

Framework, the DIY-focused PC manufacturer, has announced that it is raising prices on its desktop PC as a result of continuing RAM shortages rocking the consumer technology industry. "We held off on it as long as we could, but with LPDDR5x memory prices from our suppliers continuing to increase rapidly, we’ve had to update the pricing on Framework Desktop systems and Mainboards," Framework CEO Nirav Patel wrote in an updated blog post detailing the company's response to the memory crisis.

The base configuration, with a Ryzen AI Max 385, Radeon 8050S graphics, and 32GB of RAM, used to start at $1,099, but now starts at $1,139. The top configuration, with a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor featuring Radeon 8060S graphics and 128GB of RAM, used to start at $1,999, but now it is $2,459.

Framework has been particularly transparent about its price increases — moreso than the big box OEMs. The company made its last increase specifically for RAM modules in December, and at the time suggested that more increases would likely be coming. This, however, is the first time that pricing has directly affected Framework's systems.

The Framework Desktop stands in a unique place in the company's lineup, as it's the only product that it sells with soldered RAM, which is necessary for use with the AMD "Strix Halo" APU. That means that, unlike its laptops, Framework can't sell a version of the Desktop and let you buy your RAM elsewhere.

Patel wrote in the blog update that Framework is only raising prices to cover increased costs from suppliers. And he doesn't seem to think things are getting better: "The memory outlook as we enter 2026 continues to get worse," he wrote.

Framework isn't the only company raising prices (though it may be one of the few with regular blog posts about it). Dell, Asus, and other PC manufacturers have price increases on the way. We've also seen announcements of hikes from single-board computer leader Raspberry Pi.

RAM prices have been rising as suppliers have turned their focus to lucrative deals supplying AI datacenters, leaving fewer options for people building their own PCs and for the companies that build them for potential customers. This move is a sign that 2026 will continue to be a rocky market for companies selling PCs and for people who want to build them alike.

Without any new GPUs, gaming systems haven't been all the rage at CES. But Asus does have a new desktop that might be one of the most ostentatious showings in Las Vegas, and that's saying something.

Asus claims that the ROG G1000 is "built to be seen," which makes sense because the first things you're going to notice are the holograms. There are holograms both on the glass side panel of the massive 104-liter case as well as on the front of the intake fans.

The side panel's lighting is controlled by an additional 380 mm fan with 680 LEDs, while the front fans use two sets of 215 mm fans with 384 LEDs. There are three display modes that are customizable in Armoury Create (supporting MP4, PNG, JPG, and GIF files). In fact, there's even an "Anime Holo" button on the top of the case, next to the fan control to turn the lights on and off. If nothing else, they've dedicated a whole button to this.

The system isn't just about the lights, though. Asus is bulking this system up with top-end components, going up to a Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090.

The GM1000 keeps a 420 mm radiator in what Asus calls the "ROG Thermal Atrium", a space above the main chassis to pull in fresh out from outside the case. This sounds very similar to what HP did with its Omen 45L back in 2022, albeit with a smaller AIO cooler. Asus's design also makes a separate compartment just for airflow over the PSU.

Asus is using one of its own X870 motherboards, though hasn't specified which one. The DDR5 memory will be using the company's AEMP II (Asus Enhanced Memory Profile) to increase memory frequencies on RAM.

The company has yet to share pricing or release info for the G1000.

Beyond its desktop, Asus also has a series of gaming laptops, though most of those are getting simple CPU refreshes. Some of them are design collaborations with Kojima productions like the Asus ROG Flow Z13, while there are also spec bumps to the Asus Zephyrus G14 and G16 and Nebula HDR displays, a new Zephyrus Duo with a dualROG Nebula HDR OLED touchscreens run at 120Hz. We're still waiting on pricing and release dates for those, as well.

System builder CyberPowerPC may be familiar to visitors to our Best Gaming PC guide, but it’s not particularly known for PC cases — at least until now. The company’s new MA-01, debuting at CES, is a striking “fishbowl” case with a curved glass front and component-hiding internal slats, for a clean modern aesthetic that, at least in its off-white colorway, reminds me of something straight out of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, or perhaps the AI Mainframe room of the original 1979 Alien.

Aside from the light-colored version, the company says, there will also be a “Matte Satin Dark Steel Gray” variant, as well as a “Satin Metallic Dark Silver” version. Back-connector motherboards are supported in this ATX / Micro-ATX mid-tower case. And CyberPowerPC says this is the first case to use a woven steel mesh as its top ventilation, with variations in porosity, shape, and depth. This is said to cut high-frequency resonance, cutting exhaust noise by up to 30%. The default top mesh will be chrome, with a premium stainless steel option costing $249, rather than the $149 starting price.

Those swooping vent covers that run along the front side, bottom, and rear exhaust are also not just there to look pretty. They are angled to “redirect all intake airflow directly onto critical components,” keeping cool air from entering and immediately exiting the system without actually cooling much of anything.

Lighting is a key focus with the MA-01 case, in more ways than one. You’ll find RGB in the fans and in a strip along the bottom, with a focus on indirect illumination, for a more subtle glow. And the three knobs on the side are for analog color control (the company also says this is a first, and I can’t think of another case like it), so you can literally dial in the exact hue, brightness, and mode that you want, with knob presses activating secondary features.

There’s certainly an argument to be made that RGB doesn’t need that level of control. But I’d probably be far more likely to tweak the lighting on a case if I could just reach out and turn a knob rather than having to deal with clunky software. And having a button right there to turn off the lights when you want to watch a movie (or sleep) is certainly a welcome feature.

Other interesting features include design choices made to minimize screw and PCI bracket mounting points for a cleaner, minimal look, and a curved glass front so there is no corner seam obstructing your view. The glass does come in two pieces, though, so there is a seam not far from the front corner.

I also personally like the look of having the front ports (two USB-A, one USB-C, audio) on the front bottom, mirroring the knobs right around the corner, with orange accents tying them together. That said, the knob and port placement mean this case is solely designed to live on your desk. As someone whose 55-inch OLED TV takes up the entirety of their desk space, I’d like to see CyberPowerPC create a future variant with the knobs and ports up top.

CyberPowerPC says the case should go on sale “early in Q1,” starting at $149 for versions with the steel woven mesh top, or $249 for versions with stainless steel mesh vents.

We’ll be checking this case out in person at CES in Las Vegas and will update this story with photos and more details as we get them. We’ll let you know if it looks as good in person as it does in renders. We also hope to get one in for review before it goes on sale. But given its innovations, good looks, and reasonable price (at least for the chrome models), this is a case to watch out for in 2026, and if its airflow and noise hold up to testing, it may wind up on our list of the best PC cases.

A Redditor posted on the r/Corsair subreddit, complaining that the company cancelled their $3,499 pre-built PC order on New Year's Day, only to discover that the unit had been raised to $4,299 the following day. Senior_Ball_9068 said on the post, “I believe that they cancelled my order exactly because they raised the price.” This is a massive $700 price hike, especially at a time when memory prices are hitting record highs, leading to significant disappointment for users.

Thankfully, a Community Captain took notice and messaged the user to get their order number and get to the bottom of things. According to u/CorsairLucky, “The order was flagged by our fraud detection system and was canceled as a result. On January 1st, our Holiday Deals promo pricing ended, and the normal pricing was reinstated. But we’ll be getting OP taken care of!”

It seems that Corsair sent a coupon to u/Senior_Ball_9068, allowing them to repurchase their order at the sale price. More than that, they’ll also monitor the order, ensuring it reaches the Redditor so they can enjoy the new year with a brand-new gaming rig.

My order has been cancelled and they raised the price. from r/Corsair

This is a commendable move by Corsair, especially given that the OP wasn’t at fault. And while we’re unsure whether they reached out to Corsair customer service to fix the issue, it seems their Reddit post gained a lot of traction, catching the company's attention. The Redditor ordered the Corsair Vengeance a5100 gaming PC, which comes with an AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, 32GB (2x16GB) of DDR5-6400, and a 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD. The original $4,299 is indeed too much for a build like this, but the $3,499 sale price seems reasonable.

We looked at the specifications for the gaming PC and built something close using PCPartPicker. The total price of the custom build should be around $3,120. While many enthusiasts will not pay the $380 premium that Corsair charges for its pre-built PC, the Redditor said that they prefer that because they “never had the experience of building a PC myself” and that they did not want to “break…something up in the process.”

And even though others say that it’s easy to learn building one from scratch, it's probably something that the OP doesn’t want to risk, and that they’re willing to pay extra for the privilege of not having to think which parts to order, worry about putting it together, and the peace of mind of warranty coverage for the entire PC.

Every builder and system integrator is trying to figure out how to deal with the inflated cost of RAM. In a call with media today, Maingear CEO Wallace Santos announced BYO RAM Builds, which have customers supply the RAM for Maingear to validate into an otherwise prebuilt system.

If you pick a BYO RAM configuration, you will have to either provide a supported RAM kit that you already own for Maingear to include while it builds your PC, or order a new kit to the company for them to install. Maingear says that the upside here is that you can look for deals, attempt to time the market, or simply install RAM that you already have lying around. Maingear, in turn, offers a way to order a PC without raising prices on RAM on its own, while still validating its builds.

Santos said that his costs for a 32GB kit of RAM are up 394%, and up 344% for 64GB. He said that in over 20 years in business, he's never seen a situation like this, citing Covid, fires and floods in Taiwan, and SSD shortages. There was always, he said, a visible end to a situation.

"With this current memory situation that we're seeing right now, at first I was basically being told this was a two-to-five month situation, that lines were being ramped up, and everything would be fine," Santos told the press in a call about the new program. "As an owner of an OEM, I prepared myself, and we did what we had to do without inventory, and we prepared. But it turns out this memory situation is a multi-year problem, from what we're gathering."

Maingear isn't letting you buy an order without RAM. "To ship a fully tested, optimized system, we need memory installed before it leaves [Maingear]," a page for the program reads. There will be a consultation with the company beforehand to ensure that the RAM is compatible with the build, and if you're sending in your own RAM, Maingear will send a two-day shipping label. Santos explained that most "typical customers" don't understand how to enter or set up a BIOS, set up timings. The chances of things going wrong are pretty high," he added.

The computer itself will have Maingear's standard warranty and lifetime support, but the RAM will only be warrantied by the manufacturer.

The BYO RAM program can be applied across any build that isn't preconfigured. If it's not already built and boxed, you can opt to send in your own RAM.

And while Maingear isn't mandating this program, it sure might help the company if buyers use it. When asked if Maingear had enough RAM supply for all of its buyers without this program, Santos said plainly: "No."

"That's part of the problem," he said. "This price increase I just provided to you, that's not even guaranteed supply." He explained that he needs to place blanket purchase orders at high prices and wait for when suppliers send "buckets of memory here and there."

"This is definitely not the norm; it's never been this way," Santos added. "That's why we're being proactive. We need to adapt without compromising our customers' trust, and that's just the reality of the business right now. Not only is the price high, but we just don't have insight into how much supply we can get, which is very concerning."

There's no specific time limit for Maingear's BYO RAM program. Santos said that he expects it will run through 2026 based on shortages, and he'll keep it going as long as necessary. He hopes that prices will level off in the next six months, though it's unclear what type of increase from typical lows we'll see. He said that it will take a year and a half for new memory production lines to ramp up, leading him to suggest that maybe things will clear up two years from now.

Other system integrators are also looking into alternatives to raising prices on customers with expensive RAM. New York-based Paradox Customs recently announced a program to skip RAM altogether if you'd rather obtain your own on the market or from old builds.

Acer’s Nitro 60 gaming mid-tower ($1,599 as tested from Micro Center) delivers gaming essentials without the premium price of its Predator towers. Its combination of an Intel Core i7-14700F and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 is effective for entry-level 4K gaming performance. Outside, its attractive, glass-trimmed case lends it an upscale appearance, while inside, its RGB fans operate quietly even while gaming. It misses a few things – namely, the wireless standard is only Wi-Fi 6 and no peripherals are included – but does well everywhere else.

Design of the Acer Nitro 60

The Nitro 60 sticks to a familiar mid-tower gaming template, built around an all-black chassis with a tempered glass side panel that highlights its internals. Four RGB fans — two front intakes, one on the CPU cooler, and a rear exhaust — provide the expected glow of color. While it certainly looks the part, the design doesn’t differentiate it from the many towers in this price bracket. It’s a welcome demonstration of restraint from Acer, known for bolder and occasionally polarizing designs in its gaming line. This conventional approach provides a sense of normalcy.

The Nitro 60’s stout dimensions of 8.5 x 14.9 x 15.9 inches (WDH) make it smaller than many other mid-towers. Build quality is solid, with clean edges, a blackout interior, and tempered glass that lends a premium feel.

Lighting is divided into two zones: one for the two RGB DIMMs and another for the four fans. You can adjust colors and patterns in the Windows Dynamic Lighting app. Acer includes Gigabyte’s Dynamic Light app, but I wasn’t able to get this to open, preventing me from changing the lighting on the fans or DIMMs. I instead installed Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion, which ultimately enabled independent customization of the fans and DIMMs.

Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the Acer Nitro 60

Up front, the Nitro 60 provides two USB 3.2 Type‑A ports, 3.5 mm headphone and microphone jacks, plus power and reset buttons. It’s a decent selection, though the lack of a USB-C port is notable, particularly there is room for another USB port, but the cutout is blocked off. These connections are conveniently placed if the tower sits on a floor, though less so on a desk where cables tend to cascade downward.

Rear I/O includes a USB‑C 3.2 Gen 2x2 port, a USB‑A 3.2 Gen 2 port, four USB 2.0 ports, and three 3.5 mm audio jacks. An old‑school PS/2 port is also present, which feels dated (though it's still fairly common). The motherboard’s HDMI and DisplayPort outputs are disabled since the Core i7‑14700F lacks integrated graphics.

Networking is handled with a 2.5 Gbps Ethernet jack alongside built‑in Wi‑Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3. Faster Wi‑Fi 6E or 7 would have been better, but this configuration should suffice for most users. The included wireless antennas must be screwed in.

The side panels detach after you unscrew two thumbscrews for each. The tempered glass panel falls to the side after the screws are removed, so it’s important to support it while doing so.

Inside, the Gigabyte B760M C V2 motherboard and a tall 120 mm CPU air cooler take center stage. It’s notable that Acer used a readily available aftermarket motherboard rather than an OEM or proprietary model. Its expansion is generous, with four DIMM slots, four PCIe slots, and three M.2 slots. Cable management is mostly hidden thanks to the isolated PSU chamber, though the right‑side panel conceals some untidy bundles.

Storage expansion supports one 2.5‑ or 3.5‑inch drive, with SATA cables included. A modular 850 W Thermaltake power supply is a surprising inclusion, as many systems in this price range ship with non‑modular units. Extra cables are provided in the box.

For maintenance, the case features slide‑out dust filters beneath the PSU and on the top panel, simplifying cleaning. The front panel also comes off by tugging the handhold on its bottom edge.

Gaming and Graphics on the Acer Nitro 60

Our Acer Nitro 60 features a Core i7-14700F processor, a GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM. Although the memory is rated for 6,000 MHz, it was only running at 4,800 MHz out of the box, which is how we conducted our testing. I had to access the BIOS to enable XMP1 for it to run at its rated speed.

To test the Nitro 60, I played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III at 3840 x 2160 at the Extreme preset with DLSS enabled and observed a fluid 90 to 100 fps in most maps, with no stuttering.

For context, we compared the Nitro 60 to several gaming towers. The closest rival is the Asus ROG G700 ($2,029 as tested), which pairs a Core Ultra 7 265KF with the same GeForce RTX 5070. We also included the CyberPowerPC Gamer Supreme ($1,859), built around an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and RTX 5060 Ti, and the iBuyPower Y40 Pro ($1,899) which features a higher-end Ryzen 9 7900X and RTX 5070 Ti.

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider at the game’s Highest detail preset, the Nitro 60 competed with the ROG G700, producing 194 FPS to the latter’s 199 FPS at 1080p, while both produced 68 FPS at 4K. The RTX 5070 Ti-powered iBuyPower led the results, with 228 FPS at 1080p and 89 FPS at 4K, while the CyberPower with its RTX 5060 Ti trailed, with 149 and 46 FPS.

The demanding Cyberpunk 2077 (at the Ray Tracing Ultra preset) saw the desktops in a similar pecking order, with the Nitro 60’s 65 FPS at 1080p just behind the ROG G700’s 70 FPS. Both units also showed similar performance at 4K, with the Nitro’s 21 FPS against the ROG’s 20 FPS. The iBuyPower’s 87 and 29 FPS proved to be the best of the bunch, with the CyberPowerPC trailing with 53 and 15 FPS.

In Far Cry 6 (Ultra), the results were skewed at 1080p, with the CyberPowerPC taking the lead with 138 FPS, the iBuyPower in second place with 125 FPS, and our Nitro 60 narrowly behind it with 121 FPS. The desktops went back to their expected places at 4K, with the Nitro 60’s 81 FPS just ahead of the ROG G700’s 80. It remained behind the iBuyPower (102 FPS) and well ahead of the CyberPowerPC (59 FPS).

In Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium preset), the Nitro 60’s respective 143 and 54 FPS at 1080p and 4K slightly outperformed the ROG G700’s 120 and 50 FPS, significantly outperformed the CyberPowerPC’s 104 and 37 FPS, and trailed the iBuyPower’s 161 and 66 FPS.

Last, in Black Myth: Wukong (Cinematic preset), the Nitro 60 remained consistent, producing 56 FPS at 1080p and 24 FPS at 4K, which was within one FPS of the ROG G700 at both resolutions. The CyberPowerPC slotted behind, with 41 FPS at 1080p and 17 FPS at 4K, while the iBuyPower’s stronger RTX 5070 Ti propelled it to 66 FPS at 1080p and 32 FPS at 4K.

The Nitro 60 demonstrates strong gaming performance in line with what we expect from an RTX 5070 desktop. Despite using an older Core i7-14700F, its gaming numbers were largely identical to what we saw from the ROG G700 featuring the newer, higher-wattage Core Ultra 7 265KF, particularly at 4K where most games will be GPU-limited. Had Acer enabled the XMP memory settings out of the box, its performance might have been even closer to the ROG G700’s.

To evaluate sustained gaming performance, we run 15 loops of the Metro Exodus stress test at RTX settings. During the approximately 30-minute test, the Nitro 60 produced an average framerate of 121.3 FPS across all runs, with minimal variation between runs suggesting stable thermal performance. The Core i7-14700F maintained an average temperature of 52 degrees Celsius while the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti averaged 61 C. The Nitro 60’s fans were well-behaved throughout testing. While not inaudible, they wouldn't be distracting over typical household background noise.

Productivity Performance on the Acer Nitro 60

Our Nitro 60 features a Core i7-14700F CPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD. While the 65-watt CPU isn’t as formidable as the 125-watt K-series chips, it’s still a formidable performer for almost any task.

In our Geekbench 6 CPU test, the Nitro 60’s Core i7-14700F trailed the single-core results, producing 2,865 points. The iBuyPower did slightly better, with 2,953 from its Ryzen 9 7900X, the ROG G700 produced 3,092 with its Core Ultra 7 265KF, and the CyberPowerPC led with 3,335 courtesy of its Ryzen 7 9800X3D. In multi-core, the Nitro landed mid-pack, its 18,315 points ahead of the iBuyPower (17,226) and just trailing the CyberPowerPC (18,601) but out of range of the ROG G700 (19,057).

Our Handbrake 4K to 1080p video transcoding test saw the Nitro 60 finish dead last, completing the test in 3 minutes and 10 seconds. The others all broke the three-minute mark, with the CyberPowerPC finishing in 2:58, the iBuyPower in 2:29, and the ROG G700 in 2:03. This is the one test where the Nitro 60’s 65-watt CPU is not that adept.

Last, the Nitro 60 produced the best transfer rate of 1,861.6 MBps in our 25 GB file transfer test. The ROG G700 was second (1,816.5) while the CyberPowerPC (1,664.1) and the iBuyPower (1,501.6) picked up the last two spots.

Keyboard and Mouse with the Acer Nitro 60

The Nitro 60 we received did not include any peripherals. This is a mild omission at best, considering bundled peripherals are usually of entry-level quality, which most users will want to replace with a better keyboard and mouse anyway. Some people may even prefer picking out their own accessories.

Software and Warranty

The Nitro 60 ships with relatively little preinstalled software. Acer Care Center is the most practical inclusion, offering system updates and easy access to support resources. Acer also bundles Gigabyte’s Dynamic Light utility for RGB control, though it failed to launch during testing. I installed Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion on my own, which functioned properly and allowed customization of both the RAM modules and fans.

Less welcome is the assortment of bloatware, including a McAfee security trial and several lightweight game demos. Fortunately, these can be quickly uninstalled.

Acer provides a one‑year warranty with the system.

Acer Nitro 60 Configurations

Our review unit, sourced from Micro Center, features an air‑cooled Core i7‑14700F processor, GeForce RTX 5070 graphics, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD is on sale for $1,599 as of this writing but is $2,099 at normal price..

This configuration is competitively priced with the sale. At Best Buy, desktops with similar RTX 5070 setups—such as models from CyberPowerPC and HP’s Omen 35L—were within $100 of the Nitro 60. It also undercuts the $1,749 Asus ROG G700, which offers comparable specifications but swaps in a Core Ultra 7 265KF.

Entry‑level Nitro 60 models start at $879 at Micro Center, pairing a Core i5‑14400F with an RTX 5060, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. A $1,399 tier matches most of our review unit’s specifications but uses an RTX 5060 Ti. For $1,499, buyers can step up to an RTX 5070 paired with a Ryzen 7 7700. The highest‑end configuration, available from Acer’s online store, mirrors our review unit but upgrades to an RTX 5070 Ti for $1,799.

Bottom Line

Acer’s Nitro 60 delivers more than expected for a mid‑tier gaming desktop. With the Core i7‑14700F and GeForce RTX 5070 in our review unit, it proves to be a capable all‑around performer, even stretching into 4K gaming at the right settings. The design has appeal with its tempered glass side panel and the welcome inclusion of a modular power supply, a rarity at this price point.

There are a few shortcomings. Out of the box, the memory runs below its rated speed since XMP settings are not enabled, and no peripherals are included. Networking also tops out at Wi‑Fi 6 rather than newer standards, though this is unlikely to hinder most users.

Competition in this segment is intense. The Asus ROG G700 offers a liquid‑cooled CPU and a more eye-catching design, but at a higher cost. Meanwhile, the Nitro 60 remains price‑competitive against numerous mid‑tower alternatives from Best Buy and Micro Center. Taken together, its performance, design, and value make the Nitro 60 a strong contender for gamers seeking a well‑rounded desktop without overspending.

Dbrand and Jsaux Gaming, two companies known for making accessories for consoles and other gaming devices, have just announced custom covers and skins for the Steam Machine. Valve revealed the Steam Machine earlier this month, and the device's specifications and form factor have got everyone excited. Beyond that, the company also said it comes with a replaceable faceplate, allowing just about anyone to customize it however they see fit. To give people an idea, it showed off an example with a classic wood-grain cover and another with a built-in e-ink display, although Valve said these are merely concepts and won’t be available from the company.

Because of Steam’s popularity and the hype of the Steam Machine’s launch, a couple of companies have teased their own custom covers and even complete skins for the gaming PC. Dbrand, known for its skins and cases for the Switch 2, Steam Deck, and more, announced the Steam Machine Companion Cube. Although Dbrand hasn’t released any details for this skin yet, we can see on its page that it looks like the Weighted Companion Cube from Portal, complete even with the heart icons all around its sides. On the other hand, Jsaux Gaming teased two screens for the Steam Machine on its official Subreddit — one with an e-ink display and another showing what appears to be an LCD panel.

While you might find these offerings interesting, you really don’t have to rely on these companies if you want to customize your own Steam Machine. That’s because Valve said it will release design files, allowing anyone with a 3D printer to use their creativity to make their own covers and other customizations. Valve also isn’t limiting Steam Machine modifications to the case. The device can take an M.2 2280 SSD, allowing you to expand storage beyond the default 512GB or 2TB. You can even upgrade the 16GB SODIMM on it, but it will be a little bit involved since you need to remove some parts to access it. Aside from that, it isn’t locked down on the software side, so you can reformat the device and install a different operating system if you choose to.

All this, plus the massive Steam library, is making it quite a popular device even before it has arrived. Unfortunately, Valve hasn’t announced pricing or availability yet, especially amid the ongoing upheaval in the memory market driven by massive AI demand. But, if it’s priced just right, it’s fair to say that the Steam Machine will be an enormous hit, and that there’s going to be a market for custom accessories for it.

As you get older, certain items start to hold meaning in a way they didn't before. Sometimes, these are old things. Every morning, you find yourself reaching for that coffee mug you’ve always hated. And even though you’ve just got a new bicycle, you just can’t muster the willpower to bring the old one with the bent wheel and creaky sprocket to the dump.

It’s difficult to let go of the past, but sometimes, it’s not only things from times before that get more meaning as you get older – you start to observe it in your everyday life -- when you’re going through a particularly noteworthy event and you just know: this moment, right here, right now, is meaningful.

For myself, this build is a moment like that, and it’s taken me far too long to complete it because I almost didn’t want the moment to end. To you, the build you’re about to read and watch might just be an assortment of pretty parts and some leather, but to me, this build represents a new beginning for our new series of builds.

New Builds are Coming to Tom’s Hardware

Things are changing up a bit, and over the next few months, you’ll be seeing more and more of these builds – I already have a handful planned, but before I get into the details about this first build, I just want to give you an explainer. Or maybe a disclaimer—I’ll let you interpret it however you prefer.

Inspiring Creativity

Building a PC can be approached in many different ways. If you simply want the most performance per dollar, have a look at our Best PC Builds page, where we’ve compiled a powerful build for every budget.

This build, however, and the other builds in the series are not entirely meant to give you a parts list that offers the most frames per dollar, but rather to inspire creativity.

In this new series, I’ll be assembling some computers that might not entirely make sense. Not because I can’t build a normal computer, but because I’m bored with building the same computer. Oh, is that another 9800X3D build I see with 32GB of memory in a fishtank? Yawn.

You can build a computer in so many different ways, and my goal with this series is to showcase as much different hardware as possible, and in doing so, help you figure out what you really like in a PC. It’s easy to grab the Best CPU, pair that with the Best Graphics Card, grab some of the Best Memory, along with the Best SSD, the Best Power Supply, and the Best Case, but where’s the fun in that?

If you’re a reader of Tom’s Hardware, then a PC is something that’s, in all likelihood, highly personal to you, so stop building something generic and go create something unique.

Disclaimer: Do actually check out the best pages mentioned above, though, before buying anything. My colleagues who manage those pages are far more qualified to give recommendations for their respective categories. I’m just here to inspire you to do something different. Or as my mother-in-law likes to say; to stir the pot and cause trouble.

All that being said, the goal is to inspire attainable creativity. I won’t be showcasing ultra-high-end Threadripper systems in this series, nor will I be delving into custom liquid cooling. Any modding that I do here has to be optional to the build, so my dream of slapping a motherboard onto a hand-carved piece of oak will also have to wait for another day.

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Being the first build in this series, I’m not going to do anything highly outlandish. I set a strict budget limit for this first one: $2000. Although the goal for this Inspiring Creativity series is to showcase pretty hardware, I still wanted to build something sensible. Something where if you were to click “buy now” on all the parts on the list, I wouldn’t have it on my conscience that you’d buy a terrible computer.

With all that out of the way, let's dive into the build!

Phanteks Evolv Shift X2

For this build, I wanted to give it a personal touch that I’ll get into later, but by far the most important component to make this possible was the chassis. For this build, I’ve picked out the Phanteks Evolv X2.

This is a case that’s been on the market for a few months, and it’s the changeup I’ve been waiting for from the traditional fish-tank style cases.

What I admire about this chassis is that it goes back to a tower-style design with the PSU below the main chamber, but with a few very unusual twists to give it a very chic showcase appearance. This gives you the best of the O11D-style cases, but without the wide footprint on your desk and the unnecessarily huge number of fans.

With glass panels on three sides, plenty of discrete RGB touches, and a floating top, this chassis makes any system look great.

The main catch of this case, however, is that it doesn’t come with any fans. That being said, including fans would drive its price up by another $30 to a steep $180, and if you’re building in this case, chances are you want to match the rest of the fans to those you’ll use on the all-in-one liquid cooler, so I don’t think it’s entirely a bad thing. $150 is good for what this case offers.

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

Because of the budget limitations, I decided to opt for a 7800X3D. This chip offers most of the performance of the 9800X3D, and unless you’re gaming at 1080p and have a ludicrous graphics card, chances are you won’t notice the performance difference between the two. For more information, you can read our review here, but long story short: it’s an 8-core beast of a gaming chip that carries a peak turbo-clock of 5.0 GHz.

Big shoutout to ASRock for also sponsoring this build with the CPU.

ASRock B850 Pro-A WiFi

In that similar line of thought, I didn’t want to spend too much on the motherboard. ASRock motherboards tend to have solid pricing. The B850 Pro-A WiFi is a complete board that doesn’t break the bank. It’s got tons of connectivity at the back, plenty of PWM fan headers, and despite its ‘pro’ nomenclature, three addressable-RGB headers – perfect for a system like this where we want the motherboard to just do its job without drawing too much attention to itself.

Addressing the elephant in the room

It’s been in the news that ASRock motherboards have been causing AMD CPU failures, which made my decision to go with an ASRock motherboard anyway a bit difficult. However, there are two key bits that make me comfortable making this recommendation.

First of all, ASRock has released new BIOS revisions to address the issues.

But more importantly, the CPU failure issue appears to be present only when pairing an ASRock board with a 9000-series CPU, so if the BIOS updates aren’t giving you confidence, sticking to a 7000-series chip should.

With this in mind, all indications are that it is perfectly safe to pair the much more affordable 7800X3D with an ASRock board, saving quite a bit of money on both the motherboard and CPU, at the cost of just a 10% gaming performance penalty that you’d only witness under specific circumstances. Should anything go wrong anyway, both AMD and ASRock honor their warranties without any fuss, but this appears to be a safe combination.

G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5-6000 C30 32GB (2x 16GB)

The choice for this memory kit was an easy one – any modern system needs 32GB of memory, and when looking for a 2-dimm, RGB DDR5 kit, G.Skill’s pairing takes the crown, as tested by our resident RAM expert, Zhiye Liu. The kit comes at a ludicrous DDR5-6000 speed, and is priced just two Hamiltons ($20) above the most affordable DDR5 kits without RGB or these high speeds.

This kit packs some beautiful RGB with excellent diffusers, and it fits the look we’re going for…

I occasionally deviate from our Best lists because I’m extremely stubborn, but this one’s hard to argue with.

Sabrent Rocket 4 1TB NVMe 4.0 SSD

With the advent of PCI-Express 5.0 SSDs, the question was whether to go PCIe 5.0 or 4.0. The difference in speed, on paper, is enormous – we’re talking going from up to 7 GB/s to 14 GB/s.

But let me level with you – unless you’re video editing or working with other ridiculous forms of data, you will never, ever notice. Seven Gigabytes every second is already such an obscene amount of data; you’re better off saving your money here, getting a reliable PCIe 4.0 SSD, and keeping budget for other things.

As such, in comes the Sabrent Rocket 4, in the 1 TB flavor. A solid option that fared well in our review.

Phanteks Glacier One 360-M25 G2 AIO CPU Cooler

The Phanteks Glacier One 360-M25 G2 all-in-one liquid cooler packs three 120mm fans on a fairly standard 360mm radiator, comes with braided sleeves on the hoses, and features a CPU block with an integrated pump and cold plate for the CPU, and a small fan to cool the areas surrounding the CPU, such as the VRM circuitry and memory.

The unit comes with the M25-G2 fans, which are the second-generation M25 fans from Phanteks. These feature a black housing, daisy-chaining connectivity, RGB illuminated blades, and an infinity mirror in the fan hub that also lights up. This AIO features plenty of punch to cool even the hottest of CPUs.

be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850W Power Supply

When all is said and done, you still have to power this system. Given that this is a gaming system and not a workstation that runs 12-16 hours a day, I wouldn’t spend my extra cash on an 80-Plus Titanium power supply for the highest efficiency, especially given budgetary constraints.

But a quiet, Gold-rated PSU with a stellar 10-year warranty will give you the peace of mind that your system is fed clean, quiet power, keeping it running for many years to come.

The be quiet! Pure Power 12 M might be one of be quiet!’s more affordable power supplies, but it still comes with modular cabling too, so you’ll only connect up the cables you actually need. With 850 W at your disposal, it will also give your system room to grow should you upgrade to higher TDP components in the future.

Reverse-Flow M25 G2 RGB 120mm Fans

Because the chassis doesn’t come with fans, we have the luxury of choosing spinners that match the CPU cooler. This made our choice easy: the reverse-flow variant of the same M25 G2 RGB fans, as these would show the fan's pretty side rather than the back of the housing that supports the hub when turned to intake.

Because I wanted to keep the system within budget, we opted for a single M25 G2 fan in the non-RGB flavor to function as rear exhaust.

And finally: The Sapphire Radeon RX 9070XT Nitro+

For all the money saved on the other parts, there was budget left for this glorious beast of a graphics card. There are cheaper RX 9070XTs available, but when building a system for looks, it’s hard to ignore the Sapphire Nitro+ card.

For one, it’s gigantic. I’m not kidding, this graphics card is bigger than my forearm. Pop this bad boy into the Phanteks Evolv X2, and it’ll look like it’s floating due to the glass on all three sides.

Pair that with its titanium gray and ever-so-subtle earth-green hue, and it also stands out proudly without drawing too much gaudy attention to itself, the way a white GPU would in a black system.

To top it off, it’s not actually gone all too hard on the ‘gamer’ aesthetic. Although it’s big and bold, it still looks well-dressed and classy. Yes, most of the shroud is plastic, but the gunmetal look makes it look like a tough industrial machine. I imagine that if AMD had gone and built a reference RX 9070XT, it would look almost exactly like this, albeit a decent bit smaller.

Am I a simple man for choosing the graphics card based on its size and looks? Probably, yes.

But it’s not all superficial. The RX 9070XT is one of the Best Graphics Cards, and despite this card’s steep $750 price tag, it packs one hell of a punch. The gargantuan cooler also does its work in absolute silence – when you’re not gaming, the fans don’t even spin. Put it to work, and you’ll still barely hear it, despite packing a beefy 330 TDP.

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Building this PC is quite straightforward. We start by dropping the CPU into the socket, slotting in the G.Skill memory, and popping the Sabrent SSD into its M.2 slot.

Once this is done, we prop the motherboard into place and secure it using nine screws. Because a couple of the standoffs preinstalled in the Phanteks Evolv X2 have a ridge to hold the motherboard in place, we can do this upright, without having to lay the entire case on its side.

Then, we assemble and install the Glacier One CPU Cooler. I noticed that the top bracket only allows the hoses to be installed on the rear side of the case – I would have preferred the look of the hoses at the front, to come down from the floating part, but oh well.

I then carried on to install the rear exhaust fan, along with the reverse-flow fans at the bottom of the chassis for air intake.

Following this, it was time to install the power supply. For this, I grabbed the be quiet! PSU and hooked up the 24-pin motherboard connector, two 8-pin CPU power connectors, and the 16-pin, 600W cable to power the graphics card, connecting them all before slotting the power supply into place.

Throughout the build, I had already been connecting up some of the fan and RGB cables, and now that everything but the GPU was in place, it was time to do some cable management. You’ll agree that this isn’t my tidiest work, but the Phanteks Evolv X2 has plenty of space at the rear to work with, along with a neat metal door to cover it all up before the glass panel goes on, so it doesn’t really matter anyway.

The trickiest part was figuring out how to hook up all the RGB connectors. The fans at the top have some; the case has a bunch; the bottom fans have their own; and the CPU block has its own, too. Moreover, you can wire in the Sapphire card too, setting it to either drive the other RGB devices or letting the motherboard take over the GPU's RGB.

But the motherboard “only” has 3 headers. That’s plenty, and Phanteks' kit includes more than enough adapter pieces to group areas together, but it still took a hot second to figure out which cable comes from what, and where it must go.

Finally, it was time to install the graphics card. For this, I removed the three expansion slot covers in the way on the chassis and slotted the GPU into place. Then I raised up the GPU support bracket that’s built into the chassis, and for added support, I also installed Sapphire’s bracket. Many cases come with some form of GPU bracket nowadays, and motherboards come with strengthened PCIe slots, but it’s nice to see GPU manufacturers also include their own brackets, especially with how big GPUs are becoming. The combo of these three factors, along with the triple-slot occupation at the back of the case, meant that the GPU is thoroughly supported and won’t sag.

Power for the Sapphire Radeon RX 9070XT Nitro+ is fed at the top of the GPU, underneath its magnetic backplate. This means the cable runs from behind the GPU, giving a cable-less appearance that I quite admire. Custom cable kits are still quite expensive, and this eliminates the need for one if you care about visuals. Well done, Sapphire!

With that done, the build is complete.

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At the start of this build, I mentioned that this is one that has special meaning. It’s more than just an assortment of parts, and its role in my life represents a new beginning, incorporating a newfound passion: leatherworking.

One day, when I had too much decision paralysis over picking a belt, I thought: How about I just make one? Then it’ll be special, so it won’t have to be perfect. A €38 starter kit from Amazon, a strip of buffalo leather, three days of my time, and a few bleeding fingers later, it was done. What started as an impulse moment has become a core hobby of mine, for which I’ve since built a home workshop.

As such, when I restarted my work at Tom’s Hardware a couple of months ago and was told to build some really cool PCs, I knew I had to do something special with the first one. And that something special had to be leather.

Let’s Have a Look at the Leather

The piece of leather I’m using today is, for all intents and purposes, not that amazing. It’s one of the first pieces of leather I bought. It’s vegetable-tanned, but the tanning doesn’t run all the way through the hide, so it only has the rich color on a thin, rather delicate top layer. This also reflects in its cost, though – if I recall correctly, I scored half a hide of this one for about $23.

Being such a thin and rather delicate piece of leather, though, makes it somewhat unsuitable to use for making everyday items. It’s too thin to make a belt, and although I could use it to make a wallet, the top layer would wear apart in just days. You couldn’t make a coat with it for the same reasons, and vegetable-tanned leather lacks the suppleness and flexibility for that anyway.

This isn’t tough buffalo leather for belt-making that develops a beautiful patina either – it’s cheap leather that just ends up looking scraggly if actually used by a person. As a result, I’ve sat on it for a long time, not really knowing what to do with it.

But along came this PC build. Being a thin bit of hide, I could easily glue it into tight spots in a chassis, and since my plans for it were not to make it a handle but purely decorative on the inside of the PC, its delicate nature was no problem.

Cutting the Leather

Cutting the leather is quite straightforward. I started by grabbing the longest side of the leather and cutting a fresh, clean line. On a previous project, I had used a strip cutter. These are great for cutting out belts or straps that are straight enough, given that they’re quite narrow, but cut a wider piece from the leftover cutting, you’ll notice that the line cut by the strip cutter isn’t all that straight – but the Evolv X2 has very straight lines we want to match.

I then measured out the case thoroughly, planning my cuts along the way, and cut out three pieces. From the third piece at the back, I cut a small cutout for the expansion slots on the cover plate – I’d hate to have to rip all the leather off to remove this cover so the GPU can be removed.

For all the cuts, I used an X-Acto #2 knife with a fresh blade, which cut through the thin, delicate leather with ease.

Cleaning up the Edges

After cutting leather, the edges are never quite so clean. Typically, there are multiple steps to take here – first is to sand the edges, then you have to use an edge beveller, and then use a burnishing gum and burnish the edges.

However, this leather is very thin, and on the whole, the X-Acto knife left quite a clean cut, so I decided to skip sanding. Because the leather has a very delicate top layer, if I wish to edge bevel, my beveller needs to be freakishly sharp – otherwise it just bites into the leather, cutting a chunk out, and if it doesn’t do that, it’ll leave quite a jagged line. Because this is also not leather you will physically interact with much, a smoothed-out edge isn’t really that important. Besides, the burnishing also does quite a lot.

As such, I skipped straight ahead to applying Tokonole. This is a burnishing gum from Japan, which I’ve watered down and put into a marker – it’s much easier, efficient, and less messy to apply this way.

After allowing the leather’s edge to absorb the Tokonole and dry, I proceeded to burnish the edges using my burnishing machine. You can do this step by hand with a wooden tool, but I don't have the time or patience to do so. The heat from the burnishing machine, together with the burnishing gum (Tokonole), essentially polishes the edges of the leather, pushing any fraying fibers into the finished edge, and creating a smooth, lightly-glossy, slick finish.

Because the leather is quite thin, I could skip straight to the smallest section of the burnisher. This is the bit with the tightest curvature, which also helps round off the leather's edges for more comfortable handling.

Gluing the Leather

With all the pieces ready, it was time to glue them into the case. For this step, I’m using Kövulfix. This is a type of shoemakers glue, and it has some very interesting properties that make it ideal for this project

For one, it’s a contact-cement type glue. This means that in order to adhere, you apply a layer of glue to both surfaces you want to join, and let them dry for about 20 minutes. No need to rush against time; the exciting step comes after letting the glue dry.

Once dry, you line the leather up with the spot you want it on the case at, however, you have to be very careful: contact-cement, as its name implies, cements upon contact – as soon as the leather contacts the case, the two dried glue layers stick to each other with a bond so strong it won’t be possible to adjust or move things around. As long as your cuts are precise and your initial lining up is good, this is great.

Once the entire piece is in place, press down on the leather hard, roll over it with something smooth, or just use the base of your thumb for smooth, equal pressure, and ensure everything adheres properly.

This bond is now so strong, you’ll have to put some serious force to rip the leather off.

However, what makes Kövulfix perfect isn’t just the strong bond. Any excess glue that I accidentally got on the front side of the leather (provided the skin side is non-porous, unlike the flesh side), I can remove by simply rubbing over it with my finger. And the same goes for the edges between the case and the leather – rub over any leftover glue, and it rolls up into a gum-like substance and just comes off.

Finally, I gave the leather a coat of wax to even out any wrinkles, give the color a little more richness, and make it shine a little.

If anyone ever wants to remove the leather, some strong pulling will rip it off, and the glue residue on the case easily dissolves with acetone, bringing it back to its factory state.

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There we have it!

Enjoy the photos below.

What we have here is a PC that offers ample performance, looks unique, hovers around the $2000 price point (above or below, depending on the day you’re shopping), and does so in class and silence. The case and cooling setup here can make a ton of noise if driven to full potential, but it’s not necessary, so I do recommend setting up a fan curve that keeps things ultra-quiet at idle and finds the sweet spot balancing thermals and noise under load.

As for performance testing, we won’t be getting into those details in the Inspiring Creativity series. For that, I refer you to the reviews of the respective components written by my colleague editors – they can go much further in-depth than I can justify in a build story such as this. Below you'll find links for all the products used, in case you’re interested in one or more for a project of your own.

With that done, see you next time!

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CyberPowerPC attempts to be all things to all people with systems aimed at gamers on a low budget and players with deep pockets. Our Gamer Xtreme review unit definitely skews to the budget end of the spectrum with a price tag of just $1,099.

That price gets you a Core Ultra 200 Series CPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a 2TB SSD, and an RTX 5060 GPU. Throw in a stylish case and RGB lighting galore, and you'll see that CyberPowerPC aims to please people on a budget with the Gamer Xtreme.

Design of the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme

The latest edition of the Gamer Xtreme utilizes a Phanteks NV5 mid-tower case. It’s an interesting design constructed of black-painted stainless steel with a glass front and a glass side panel to give you an unobstructed view of the system's interior components. There’s also plenty of ventilation, with a grill on the right-side panel for three vertically-mounted 120mm RGB fans. The top panel also includes ventilation, with support for another three 120 mm fans or a 360 mm radiator (although our review unit didn’t have the additional fans) and a removable dust filter. There’s a fourth 120mm RGB fan at the rear of the case for exhaust.

In addition to the RGB fans, there’s a light strip at the base of the front glass, and another light strip that traces the “ramp” housing the power supply. The final piece to the lighting scheme is the air cooler for the CPU, which features a 120mm RGB fan.

The case offers good cable management options, with all of the power cables routing beneath the motherboard, mainly leaving uninterrupted airflow to keep everything nice and cool.

The Gamer Xtreme measures 9.4 x 18.8 x 20.8 inches. For comparison, the CyberPower Gamer Supreme has dimensions of 19.5 x 9.3 x 18.1 inches, and the iBuyPower Y40 Pro comes in at 18.58 x 17.28 x 9.44 inches

CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme

The Gamer Xtreme has a wealth of connectivity options, with ports available at the top of the case and the motherboard I/O panel at the rear. On the top of the case, starting from the front, you’ll find the power button, reset button, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, two USB-A 3.0 ports, an RGB mode button, and an RGB color button.The rear I/O panel is home to one DisplayPort, one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, four USB-A 2.0, four USB-A 5 Gbps, one USB-A 10 Gbps, 2.5 GbE, two antenna ports for the onboard Wi-Fi 6 module, and three audio jacks.

CyberPowerPC opted for an Asus B860M Max Gaming AX motherboard for the Gamer Xtreme, which uses Intel’s B860M chipset and supports Intel LGA1851 processors. In our review unit, the socket was populated with a Core Ultra 5 225F processor.

The motherboard features four DIMM slots, supporting a maximum of 256GB DDR5 memory. Our review unit featured two slots filled with 16GB Team Group T-Force Vulcan DDR5-6400 modules.

There are three M.2 slots onboard (PCIe 5.0 x4, PCIe 4.0 x4, PCIe 4.0 x2), along with four SATA 6 Gbps ports for storage. In addition, there is one PCIe 5.0 x16, one PCIe 4.0 x16 (x4 mode), and two PCIe 4.0 x16 slots (x1 mode). For additional storage you can mount HDDs and SSDs to a vertical bracket behind the right-side panel (beneath the motherboard).

Gaming Performance on the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme

Our Gamer Xtreme review unit came with an Intel Core Ultra 5 225F "Arrow Lake" processor, which is a 10-core design (6 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores) with a base clock of 3.3 GHz and a maximum turbo clock of 4.9 GHz. You also get 32GB of DDR5-6400 memory and an MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Shadow 2X OC (8GB) with a maximum graphics clock of 2,527 MHz.

We don't have any additional RTX 5060 prebuilts in our desktop gaming PC testing database, so we have assembled the closest matches that we could find. The CyberPowerPC Gamer Supreme is equipped with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 32GB of DDR5-6000, and an RTX 5060 Ti. The iBuyPower Y40 Pro enters the ring with a Ryzen 9 7900X, 32GB of DDR5-5200, and an RTX 5070 Ti.

I’ve been playing through Indiana Jones and the Great Circle in my downtime and averaged between 120 to 145 frames per second (FPS) at 1080p using Ultra settings.

Beginning with Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest settings), the Gamer Xtreme delivered 128 FPS at 1080p and 39 FPS at 4K. The Gamer Supreme, with its RTX 5060 Ti, was able to improve on those numbers, garnering 149 FPS and 46 FPS, respectively. Of course, the Y40 Pro came out, guns blazing, delivering 100 more FPS than the Gamer Xtreme at 1080p (228 FPS) and 89 FPS at 4K.

Cyberpunk 2077 (Ray Tracing Ultra settings) shows no mercy when it comes to graphics hardware demands, as the Gamer Xtreme could only extract 39 FPS at 1080p. Cranking the slider to 4K turned things into a slideshow, at just 2 FPS. The Gamer Supreme clocked in at 53 FPS at 1080p resolution, and 15 FPS at 4K. Not surprisingly, the Y40 Pro was the clear leader in the benchmarks, with 87 FPS and 29 FPS at 1080p resolution and 4K resolution, respectively.

Far Cry 6 (Ultra settings), is another veteran of our gaming benchmark suite, and here the Gamer Xtreme pulled 109 FPS at 1080p and a playable 50 FPS at 4K. The Gamer Supreme was about 20 percent faster in each benchmark, while the Y40 Pro doubled the Gamer Xtreme’s performance at 4K (102 FPS).

Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium settings), is still one of the most beautiful PC games I’ve ever played, even six years after its release. The Gamer Xtreme is capable of 84 FPS at 1080p, which drops to 31 FPS at 4K resolution. The Y40 Pro shows the true power of the RTX 5070 Ti, nearly doubling performance at 1080p (161 FPS) and more than doubling at 4K (66 FPS).

Finally, our Borderlands 3 benchmark (Badass settings), showed the Gamer Xtreme delivering 116 FPS at 1080p and 44 FPS at 4K. For comparison, the Gamer Supreme with its RTX 5060 Ti hit 135 FPS at 1080p and 52 FPS at 4K.

The gaming performance of the Gamer Xtreme was quite good, all things considered. The Core Ultra 5 225F is no match for the Ryzen processors in CPU-intensive games or higher-spec RTX 50 Series graphics cards at 4K resolution. But when you consider the $1,099 price tag of the Gamer Xtreme versus the $1,859 price of the Gamer Supreme, the roughly 10 to 20% performance differential between the two systems becomes a lot more palatable for budget shoppers.

Metro Exodus is our go-to resource for gaming PC stress tests, and we used a 15-run loop on the Gamer Xtreme. The system averaged 89.57 FPS at 1080p, with a low of 87.96 FPS and a high of 89.98 FPS. During the test, the Core Ultra 5 225F’s performance cores averaged 4.47 GHz, the efficiency cores clocked in at 4.11 GHz, and the CPU package measured 71 degrees Celsius. The RTX 5060 averaged 2.45 GHz at an average temperature of 69 C.

Fan noise from the 120mm CPU cooler is loud, even at idle. Unlike the gentle hum that you’ll get with AIO coolers, the Gamer Xtreme’s air cooler can get a bit irritating if all you’re trying to do is browse the internet or write a document. Once you start gaming and the fans on the RTX 5060 ramp, the noise becomes even more offensive. Not all air coolers are this loud, so CyberPower’s fan choice here is a bit curious.

Productivity Performance on the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme

The Gamer Xtreme features a Core Ultra 5 225F processor (6 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores), 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD. As you’ll see in the benchmarks, the Core Ultra 5 225F’s shortage of cores compared to the Ryzen systems in this test is readily apparent. However, there’s a huge delta in price between the Gamer Xtreme and the other two systems, so always keep that in the back of your mind.

The Geekbench 6 synthetic CPU benchmark saw the Gamer Xtreme come to the table with 2,893 in the single-core test and 14,873 in the multi-core test. For comparison, the Gamer Xtreme with its raucous Ryzen 7 9800X3D hit 3,335 and 18,601, respectively.

What it lacked in CPU muscle, the Gamer Xtreme made up for it in storage performance. During our 25GB file transfer test, the MSI M470 Pro SSD sped past the radar gun at 1,964.94 Mbps, putting it well ahead of the more expensive systems in this test. The Gamer Supreme managed 1,664.11 Mbps, while the Y40 Pro was even further back at 1,501.55.

Finally, the Handbrake test really showed the real-world shortfall on multi-threaded performance. When we transcode our 4K video test file to 1080p, the Gamer Xtreme took four minutes and 27 seconds, compared to just two minutes and 58 seconds for the Gamer Supreme. The Y40 Pro was faster still, completing the task in two minutes and 29 seconds.

Keyboard and Mouse with the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme

CyberPowerPC includes a basic keyboard and mouse in the box with the Gamer Xtreme. It’s nothing that I would have purchased for my personal use, but as a pack-in with a gaming desktop, it's quite good.

The NOHI 2 keyboard has multi-colored RGB lighting effects and relatively good tactile typing. There are flip-out feet to adjust your typing angle and you can cycle through the different lighting modes using the FN key plus numbers 1 through 0. Using the keyhero.com typing test, I averaged 90 words per minute with 95.67 percent accuracy.

A CyberPowerPC Elite M2 RGB gaming mouse is included, but it’s a little on the small side for my tastes and designed for right-handed folks. The mouse has six buttons (including two on the side and a top button that by default controls DPI). There’s nothing particularly outstanding about the mouse and it works “just fine.”

Software and Warranty

I can gladly say that CyberPowerPC doesn’t include any extraneous software or utilities on the Gamer Xtreme. No system utilities, no warranty apps, no resource-robbing antivirus trials, and no trials for games or VPNs. Instead, you get a bone stock install of Windows 11 Home, which is great news for gamers who want zero bloat to contend with first booting up the system.

Systems purchased directly from CyberPowerPC.com come with a three-year labor and two-year parts warranty. Our particular system, which is available exclusively from Costco, comes with a two-year warranty.

CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme Configurations

Our Gamer Xtreme review unit (Model GXi2000CSTV3) is a Costco exclusive, and features an Intel Core Ultra 5 225F processor, MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Shadow 2X OC graphics card, 32GB of Team Group T-Force Vulcan DDR5-6400 (2x 16GB) RAM, a 2TB SSD, and Windows 11 Home. It’s priced at a reasonable $1,099.99.

Best Buy also sells a higher-spec version (Model GXi3400BSTV17) with a Core Ultra 7 265F, GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD for $1,599.

Bottom Line

You get quite a bit for your $1,099.99with the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme. You get 32GB of RAM and a generous 2TB SSD for installing your favorite AAA games. Although the keyboard and mouse that are included in the box aren’t the best, they’re perfectly serviceable for gamers on a budget.

You also get niceties like a roomy case with plenty of cooling and RGB vividness, standard Wi-Fi (albeit the older Wi-Fi 6 standard), and a bloat-free install of Windows 11.

At this price point, it’s hard to find fault with the Gamer Xtreme, other than the grating sound from its CPU cooler, which is loud even at idle, and only gets louder when you start gaming. If CyberPowerPC could swap out the air-cooled solution for one with a quieter fan or AIO unit and bump the price slightly, it’d have a real winner here.

Popular PC vendor Maingear has today debuted a brand new line-up of extremely potent performance PCs with an eye-watering price tag to match. New this week are the Apex Force and Apex Rush models, starting at a cool $7,469/$6,259 respectively.

First up is the new Apex Force, a full-tower chassis housed inside the Phanteks NV9 case. Maingear touts a dual-loop hardline cooling system with offset tubing, upgradable RGB, and more. Support for dual 420mm radiators with three 140mm fans keeps everything cool, which is important given the components on offer.

Maingear Apex Force specs

• Chassis: Phanteks NV9 (Full-tower)
• Motherboard: Top-tier Z890 and X870E motherboards from Asrock and MSI
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9700X to 9950X3D and Intel Core Ultra 265K and 285K
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 and 5090 GPUs
• RAM: Up to 64GB T-Force Extreme RGB DDR5 6000MHz (and up to 96GB at 6400MHz)
• Storage: Up to 8TB Gen4 or 4TB Gen5 M.2 NVMe SSDs
• Cooling: 2x 420mm x 60mm radiators, 6x 140mm x 30mm RGB fans, Custom APEX Integrated Cooling System, Separate GPU and CPU dual loop system, Easily accessible drain and fill ports, serviceable pump, quick disconnects on drain ports for easy maintenance
• Power: Up to 1650W 80+ Titanium PSU
• Aesthetics: Acrylic and metal hard tubing with 10-degree offset to match case design, premium metal fittings in various colors, dual coolant color options, multiple translucent coolant colors available, diffused RGB trim kit, motherboard and case RGB control with separate cooling loop zones.

All of that will set you back a cool $7,469, but that's just the starting price, with upgrade options for beefier processor, GPU, RAM, and storage likely to run you more.

The new Apex Rush is cheaper (relatively speaking), starting at just $6,259. The dual-chamber mid-tower has panoramic tempered glass, and customization for water cooling with options for hard and soft tubing. Cooling is less prolific at just dual 360mm radiators with six 120mm fans. There are also screwless panels for the cooling system to make draining and filling easier.

Maingear Apex Rush specs

• Chassis: Lian-Li O11 EVO RGB (Mid-tower)
• Motherboard: Top-tier Z890 and X870E motherboards from Asrock and MSI
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9700X to 9950X3D and Intel Core Ultra 265K and 285K
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 and 5090 GPUs
• RAM: Up to 64GB T-Force Extreme RGB DDR5 6000MHz (and up to 96GB at 6400MHz)
• Storage: Up to 8TB Gen4 or 4TB Gen5 M.2 NVMe SSDs
• Cooling: 2x 360mm radiators, 7x 120mm RGB fans, Custom APEX Integrated Cooling System, easily accessible drain and fill ports, serviceable pump, quick disconnects on drain ports for easy maintenance
• Power: Up to 1650W 80+ Titanium PSU
• Aesthetics: Soft vinyl or Neoprene tubing with optional braided sleeving or Acrylic and Metal hard tubing, Premium metal fittings in various colors, multiple translucent coolant color options, braided cable sleeving, motherboard and case RGB control with diffused lighting

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.

The 750-watt power supply isn’t modular, but it covers the standard connectors and delivers enough juice for mid- to enthusiast-tier GPUs. With clearance for cards up to 422 mm long, this case shouldn’t hold you back when it’s time to upgrade.

Gaming and Graphics on the iBuyPower Y40 Pro

Our Y40 Pro test configuration features a Ryzen 9 7900X CPU, GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPU, and 32GB of DDR5-5200 RAM.

For my game testing, I fired up F1 24 and played at the game’s Ultra preset at 3840 x 2160 with DLSS enabled, seeing anywhere from the high-80 to the low-100 frames per second range. The gameplay was exceptionally smooth.

We compared the Y40 Pro to two other gaming desktops: the Asus ROG G700 ($2,029 as tested) features an Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF, though it sticks with the vanilla GeForce RTX 5070, while the Corsair Vengeance a7500 ($2,799) pairs the gaming-focused Ryzen 7 9800X3D with an RTX 5070 Ti. While the Corsair and the iBuyPower have similar GPUs, we'll see some big performance gaps at 1080p due to the CPU, which also makes the Corsair far more expensive.

Starting with Shadow of the Tomb Raider at the Highest detail preset, the Y40 Pro trailed the Corsair significantly at the CPU-bound 1080p resolution, with 228 FPS versus the Corsair’s 261 FPS. At 4K, however, both systems leveled out at 89 FPS. The RTX 5070-powered Asus predictably fell behind, posting 199 FPS at 1080p and 68 FPS at 4K.

In Cyberpunk 2077's demanding Ray Tracing Ultra preset, the Y40 Pro narrowed the gap, achieving 87 FPS at 1080p compared to the Corsair’s 95 FPS. At 4K, both machines converged again, each producing 29 FPS.

Far Cry 6 at Ultra settings showed a wider disparity at 1080p, with the Y40 Pro reaching 125 FPS while the Corsair surges ahead at 197 FPS. At 4K, the performance is almost identical. The Asus sits between the two, with 110 FPS at 1080p and 80 FPS at 4K.

In Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium preset), the Y40 Pro clocked in at 161 FPS at 1080p, just behind the Corsair’s 174 FPS. At 4K, the difference is negligible: 66 FPS for the Y40 Pro and 67 FPS for the Corsair. The Asus trailed again, with 120 FPS at 1080p and 50 FPS at 4K.

Finally, in Borderlands 3 at the “Badass” preset, the Y40 Pro stayed competitive, posting 215 FPS versus the Corsair’s 227 FPS at 1080p. Both systems match at 94 FPS at 4K. The Asus finished with 175 FPS and 74 FPS, respectively.

Overall, the Y40 Pro delivers stable gaming performance, though it falls short of the Corsair in CPU-intensive titles and lower resolutions, where the Ryzen 7 9800X3D clearly extracts more from the RTX 5070 Ti. At 4K, where GPU limitations are apparent, the two systems perform nearly identically. Since the Y40 Pro is also available with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, its performance gap isn’t necessarily a strike against it, though as of this review, no RTX 5070 Ti configuration was available with that chip (see the configuration section for more).

To evaluate sustained gaming performance, we run 15 loops of the Metro Exodus stress test at RTX settings. During the approximately 30-minute test, the Y40 produced an average framerate of 163 FPS across all runs, with almost no variation between runs. The Ryzen 9 7900X maintained an average temperature of just 50 degrees Celsius while the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti averaged 61 C.

Productivity Performance on the iBuyPower Y40 Pro

The Y40 Pro is built for high-performance productivity, featuring a Ryzen 9 7900X processor, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB PCIe Gen4 SSD.

In Geekbench 6’s synthetic CPU test, the Y40 Pro landed behind its rivals in both single- and multi-core scores. It posted 2,953 points in single-core, just shy of the Asus’ 3,029 and well below the Corsair’s leading 3,247. Multi-core results followed a similar pattern, with the Y40 Pro scoring 17,226 compared to 19,057 for the Asus and 18,124 for the Corsair.

The Y40 Pro also lagged in our 25GB file transfer test, where its SSD delivered 1,501.6 MBps. That’s notably slower than the Asus at 1,816.5 MBps and far behind the Corsair’s impressive 2,659.9 MBps.

In our Handbrake video transcode test (4K to 1080p), the Y40 Pro redeemed itself slightly, finishing in 2 minutes and 29 seconds to be second fastest overall. It trailed the Asus (2:03) but outpaced the Corsair (3:02).

Performance may improve with the newer Ryzen 9 9700X configuration, which could help close the gap in CPU-heavy workloads. As noted in the Configurations section of this review, iBuyPower offers many different CPUs in this tower, including Intel chips.

Keyboard and Mouse with the iBuyPower Y40 Pro

iBuyPower bundles its Chimera K7 RGB mouse and keyboard with the Y40 Pro, which are basic peripherals but a cut above the generic kits often tossed in with mainstream desktops.

The Chimera K7 mouse sports a gamer-friendly shape that fits comfortably in medium-sized hands, though it’s designed exclusively for right-handed users. While the primary buttons and scroll wheel feel like nothing special, it does include two side buttons and a DPI toggle behind the wheel. A dedicated RGB switch on the underside cycles through ten LED modes, including off. The lighting is impressively bright, with effects like breathing, strobing, solid color, and a starlight mode that illuminates sections of the mouse in sequence.

Despite its membrane construction, the keyboard delivers a surprisingly tactile typing experience. I had no trouble maintaining my usual speed of about 120 words per minute and near-perfect accuracy on MonkeyType. It lacks premium features like USB passthroughs, but compensates with vibrant RGB backlighting across multiple colors. Lighting is controlled directly via Fn+ScrollLock, with options for static or breathing effects, and can be disabled using Fn+Pause. Flip-out feet provide a slight incline for ergonomic comfort, though iBuyPower unfortunately doesn’t include a palm rest.

Software and Warranty

Besides the usual smattering of Windows 11 default apps, iBuyPower preloads no software onto the Y40 Pro, which is mostly great. I had to install MSI Center myself for RGB lighting control.

iBuyPower backs the Y40 Pro with an industry standard one-year warranty.

iBuyPower Y40 Pro Configurations

iBuyPower offers a vast selection of prebuilt desktops, including fully customized systems on its website. Our Y40 Pro test unit, a $2,099 model from Amazon, uses the older Ryzen 7 7900X CPU; an $1,899 version at Best Buy swaps in the Ryzen 9 9700X and keeps all other specifications the same, including the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD.

Other configurations available at Best Buy begin at $1,499 with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Radeon RX 7800 XT, followed by a $1,599 model with a Ryzen 7 8700F and RTX 5070, and a $1,699 option pairing a Ryzen 7 7800X3D with a Radeon RX 9070. Higher-tier models include a $1,999 build with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Radeon RX 9070XT, and a $2,299 version matching our test unit’s specs but upgraded to a Ryzen 9 9900X. Systems featuring the RTX 5080 start at $2,499, with the flagship $2,999 configuration combining that GPU with a Ryzen 9 9900X.

iBuyPower is competitive on price: a similarly equipped Corsair Vengeance a7500 was listed at $2,899 with a Ryzen 7 7800X3D and 1TB SSD, Alienware’s Aurora came in at $1,949 with a Core Ultra 7 265KF, and the Asus ROG G700 was priced at $2,399 with a Ryzen 7 9800XD.

Bottom Line

iBuyPower’s Y40 stands out visually and delivers solid mid-tier gaming performance, backed by decent build quality and ample connectivity. Above-average peripherals and competitive pricing further enhance its value proposition.

That said, noticeable fan noise detracts from the overall experience, and the limited RGB customization may disappoint users seeking more personalization. While most won’t need to expand storage or install additional full-height PCIe cards, it’s worth noting that the chassis offers little flexibility in those areas.

Ultimately, the Y40 Pro is among the more stylish mid-towers we’ve tested and holds its own against competitors like the Asus ROG G700. Still, for those prioritizing acoustic performance, the quieter G700 earns our preference.

In what has to be the luckiest case of a mislabeled auction item ever, a user in the PCMasterRace subreddit has posted a string of jealousy-inducing images of a full system they won for just $23. Although the original auction listing was for just a case, there was actually a full system inside containing some seriously powerful hardware, including a 24-core Threadripper 3960X, 256GB of memory, and an RTX 3080 Ti.

Capital City Online Auctions is a small auctioneer that requires local pickup, so it's not something that anyone could have taken part in, but the auction winner was very lucky nonetheless. The auctioneer sells a wide range of items, from mattresses to rowing boats, to full-on desktop PCs complete with internal hardware. In what appears to be a case of the seller not knowing what they had, they listed the lot as a Fractal Design Define 7 XL computer case. The images used in the listing were stock case pictures from Fractal Design, so there was no way any of the bidders could have known what they were actually bidding on.

Even if it were just the case, the lucky Reddit user LlamadeusGame would have gotten a great deal on a very good PC case from a few years ago. It still sells for around $250 new all by itself. But what they ended up getting for a mere $23.50 ended up being worth much more than that.

A Reddit user found a discarded gaming PC while taking out the trash at their upscale apartment building and decided to give it a second life. According to u/Triggerhappy62, the computer appeared to be from around 2017 and contained almost everything needed to make it run, except for storage.

It featured an Intel Core i7-7700 CPU, a Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 GPU, and 16GB (2x 8GB) of DDR4-3000 RAM, all installed on an MSI B250M Gaming Pro motherboard. The entire system is powered by a Corsair CX750 PSU and features an optical drive with a driver disc still inside, as well as a network card. The case itself is branded with Enermax, a custom PC builder known for its high-end builds.

These specifications indicate that the PC, as found by u/Triggerhappy62, was a proper gaming rig, and it appears that its previous owner has finally decided to upgrade their system, as suggested by the missing drive. Despite its age, this system remains decent and an upgrade from the original poster’s existing computer, which features an Intel Core i5-4670K CPU, a Gigabyte Radeon RX 570 GPU, and 16 GB of DDR3-1866 RAM, all mounted on a Gigabyte GA-Z97N-WiFi mini-ITX motherboard from Free Geek. This nonprofit organization distributes old computers to the community at no cost or for a low fee.

Found a gaming pc from 2017ish while I was taking the trash out at my upscale apartment building. It was in our trash room just sitting there. from r/pcmasterrace

An eagle-eyed Redditor noticed an entire gaming PLC sitting in the dumpster, so they decided to remove it, clean it up, and see if it still worked. According to u/AcordeonPhx, they fished out the system with a broom and then thoroughly disinfected it inside and out, including using compressed air to blow out all the dust and then bathing it in alcohol after spending an unknown amount of time in the trash. After all that, they repasted the CPU, updated the BIOS and drivers, and the system is ready to rock ‘n roll.

The PC itself is powered by an Intel Core i5-6600, launched in September 2015, with 8GB of RAM, and an AMD Radeon R9 380 from the same era. They’re mounted on a Gigabyte GA-H100M-A motherboard and powered by a Seasonic SS-520GB 520W power supply. The system boots up to Windows 11 IoT Enterprise, which was installed in July of last year.

We don’t know the reason why this particular system was discarded, but its operating system provides some clues. The IoT Enterprise version of Windows 11 is designed for use on embedded systems and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Given that it has a rather decent GPU for its time, this PC is unlikely to be used as just a simple POS terminal or record-keeping station. It’s likely used for rendering user interfaces or signs, or maybe even for some light 3D work. Nevertheless, its former owner has thrown it out, likely because they’ve upgraded their system and have no longer use for it.

pcmasterrace from r/pcmasterrace/comments/1mjs5tr/dumpster_pc_find

When Framework built its first laptop, it was with the ethos of a desktop: repairable, customizable, and upgradable when new parts came out. Now, Framework has a desktop of its own.

But the Framework Desktop ($1,599 as tested before a myriad of components and add-ons), isn't a traditional PC by any means. Using an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 “Strix Halo” APU with soldered RAM, the customization options on this desktop are limited to storage, Wi-Fi, your case fan, and some decorative elements. The soldered RAM is effectively required for the bandwidth this system needs, and the mix of powerful graphics and plentiful RAM is why Framework is pushing this as an AI system.

The Desktop has a ton of charm, from its 4.5-liter size to its surprising power with the right configuration. But it's also very expensive compared to the best gaming PCs in its price range, and if you don't use all of the RAM, you might be better off with a cheaper system.

Design and Upgradeability of the Framework Desktop

The Framework Desktop is really small. It's a 4.5-liter Mini-ITX system that will fit on even the small desks.

The system is a plain, black case. Ours came with a black side panel, though there is a $40 window option (see configurations, below). Since we weren't using a fan with RGB, I was fine with the opaque panel. The side panels are plastic with some metal shielding inside, while the top panel is entirely plastic.

Most of the system comes pre-installed in the box. The motherboard is already installed, and since it's using a soldered CPU and RAM, those are there, too. The heatsink comes mounted to the board, and the 400-watt FlexATX power supply is already all hooked up. When Framework refers to this as a "DIY" system, it really means removing the side panel and the top, installing an SSD and a fan, and boom, complete system. That took me less than 20 minutes, and Framework has a handy step-by-step guide on its website. The hardest part is plugging in the fan header on the motherboard (and I suppose, the RGB header if your fan supports it), which requires some nimble finger placement.

The system comes with a screwdriver that has both a Phillips and Torx head. Its primary difference from the company’s Laptop screwdriver is that it's far longer, letting you get into the case to install your SSD.

Our review unit came with an early version of a carrying handle, but that's not available to the public just yet. I didn't carry the desktop around the office too much, but it sure looks cute. Otherwise, the top is held on by two thumbscrews.

The upgrade potential on this system is limited. On the left side, you can put in your primary storage drive and add a fan of your choosing to the heatsink. Open the right side of the chassis and the reverse side of the motherboard has a second M.2 slot for storage, as well as access to the AMD RZ717 Wi-Fi 7 card.

That fan and heatsink serve as all of the cooling for the system. The heatsink is sizeable, with six copper heatpipes, aluminum fins, and Honeywell PTM7958 thermal paste. The desktop comes with a mounting kit to attach a 120mm fan. The fan sucks cool air in through perforations in the side of the case.

On the front of the desktop, there is room for a 92 mm fan. The tooling is there, and there's also a second fan header on the motherboard. A company rep told me that "Framework originally put a placeholder for a slim fan there. They learned quickly that the main CPU/system fan provides enough cooling for the whole system."

One thing you can change to your heart's content: the front ports on the case. There are two slots for Framework's expansion cards — the same pick-your-port adapters that it uses on its laptops. I stuck one USB Type-C port and one USB Type-A port, which accommodates most of the accessories I use every day, though I could see some people picking a 3.5 mm headphone jack for gaming, as the permanent one is on the back of the system. Other choices include SD or microSD card slots, an Ethernet jack, or extra USB-C connected storage.

The expansion cards will be very welcome for those who already have a Framework Laptop, as you can mix and match. But using the adapters on the desktop shows its limits. You can only have two ports of your choosing due to the width of the expansion cards. Just by eyeballing it, it’s clear Framework could have fit more ports on without the cards.

The rest of the ports are on the rear, attached to the motherboard. They're plentiful. There are two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a pair of USB4 Type-C ports, HDMI 2.1, two DisplayPort 2.1 outputs, Ethernet, and a headphone jack.

On the front of the system, there's a magnetic frame meant to hold 21 tiles, which are Framework's way of adding personalization to the system. I wish Framework included a blank set with purchase, but you have to buy them separately. Otherwise you'll have gaps in the front of the system.

The tiles highlight Framework's maker roots and allow for tons of different customization options. On the other hand, they look kind of cheap and feel like something that came from a 3D printer. I would have preferred an option to use a single colored sheet, perhaps matching some of the colors Framework uses for its Laptop bezels.

At 8.9 x 8.09 x 3.81 inches, the Framework Desktop is quite small for a desktop. It's got some graphics chops, but it's more in the range of Apple's Mac Mini (5 x 5 x 2 inches, no upgradeability) than classic gaming desktops. For instance, the CyberPowerPC Gamer Supreme is 9.3 x 19.5 x 18.1 inches and the Acer Predator Orion 5000 measures 19.09 x 18.98 x 8.62 inches.

One thing is missing from the Framework Desktop: a list of the names of the people in the company. In its laptops, you get a list of everyone who worked on them printed inside the chassis. That's not the case here.

Framework Desktop Specifications

Gaming and Graphics on the Framework Desktop

The Radeon Strix 8060S graphics on the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 are impressive. The chip, often referred to by its "Strix Halo" codename, features 40 compute units and shares our system's 64GB of RAM with the CPU. Yes, you can game on these integrated graphics, no question.

As a challenge, I booted up Alan Wake 2. While I got a VRAM error message, I pressed on without issue. On the medium graphics preset with no ray tracing, FSR enabled, and a 720p render with upscaling to 1080p, the game saw the titular hero explore a nightmare New York at between 73 and 78 frames per second. The game also ran at high settings, but dropped below 60 FPS.

Death Stranding, too, played well (and better understood the shared RAM situation). At 1080p, on the very high preset, I carried packages between 124 - 132 FPS. Even at 4K, the game ran between 41-50 FPS at the most demanding settings. For most intense games, though, this is a solid 1080p rig.

Our benchmarks, which are typically run on discrete graphics cards, are run at quite demanding settings. Some of them may appear unplayable, but if you turn some settings down, you can get the Framework Desktop to playability territory. Here, we're comparing the Framework to other gaming desktops, and, unsurprisingly, the larger, more traditional systems won out in most tests. The CyberPowerPC Gamer Supreme has an Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti, while the older Acer Predator Orion 5000 used an RTX 4070 Super. Both of them, however, are within the range of what our configuration of the Framework Desktop in terms of cost.

On Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the Framework Desktop ran the game at 87 FPS on the highest settings at 1080p. It also excelled on CPU-heavy games like Far Cry 6 at ultra settings (83 FPS) and Borderlands 3 on the "badass" preset (103 fps.) The game performed passably on Red Dead Redemption 2 at medium settings (57 fps). It only faltered on Cyberpunk 2077's challenging Ray Tracing Ultra preset.

To stress test gaming PCs, we run the Metro Exodus benchmark 15 times on a loop using the RTX preset to simulate about half an hour of gameplay. Across the runs, the game ran at an average of 51 frames per second. You might want to turn off the ray tracing, though – the average minimum 99th percentile frame rate was 24 fps. During the test, the Ryzen chip, which includes the graphics, ran at 66.46 degrees Celsius.

Productivity Performance on the Framework Desktop

Sure, the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 is a mobile chip in a desktop's clothes, but with 64GB of RAM and a fast 1TB SSD, the system can compete with some recent gaming desktops we've tested when it comes to productivity.

On Geekbench 6, the Framework Desktop notched a single-core score of 2,966 and achieved a multi-core score of 17,574. The CyberPowerPC and its AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D outperformed, as did the Mac Mini with M4 Pro, (3,880 and 22,661, the highest of the group). But the Framework surpassed the Acer Predator Orion 5000 and its Intel Core i7-14700F.

The file transfer speed on your Framework Desktop will depend heavily on which drive you choose. With the 1TB WD Black SN7100 that Framework sells alongside the Desktop, we saw it blaze through our file transfer test at a rate of 2,976.46 MBps, handily surpassing everything else on our test. The Mac Mini was the next closest, at 2,237.31 MBps.

It took the Framework Desktop 2 minutes and 43 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p on Handbrake. Only the Predator beat it at 2:40, while the Mac came in at 2:47.

You can't overclock the Strix Halo chip. Framework's BIOS doesn't have options for it, and installing Ryzen Master doesn't work. It throws up an error stating that the chip isn't supported and that the software can't be installed.

Framework Desktop Dissonance

Throughout my time with the Framework Desktop, I felt a sort of dissonance. I've always enjoyed the amount of tinkering I get to do with the company's laptops.

With the Desktop, it's far more limited. In a way, using a soldered CPU and RAM feels antithetical to Framework's entire ethos of choice, repairability, and upgradeability. Framework says there’s a reason for that, though.

"To enable the massive 256GB/s memory bandwidth that Ryzen AI Max delivers, the LPDDR5x is soldered," a Framework blog post announcing the desktop reads. “We spent months working with AMD to explore ways around this but ultimately determined that it wasn’t technically feasible to land modular memory at high throughput with the 256-bit memory bus. Because the memory is non-upgradeable, we’re being deliberate in making memory pricing more reasonable than you might find with other brands."

Framework made the choice to use Ryzen's AI Max processors anyway. If you want replaceable memory, though, there are hundreds of other gaming and productivity PCs on the market with that option. And, of course, you can still build your own.

I've reduced this dissonance by thinking of the system more like a Mac Mini that is bigger because it is upgradeable. Still, that may not satisfy some diehards, who see the company's laptops as more repairable than its desktop.

There is one part that feels very Framework. The company is selling the mainboard and every single component — including the case — individually and separately. This should allow for all sorts of projects (Framework has suggested the use of multiple mainboards for LLM racks to run models).

Software and Warranty on the Framework Desktop

The Framework Desktop comes free of any manufacturer-provided bloatware, and it's refreshing. The only mark against it is a link to the Framework Marketplace in the Start menu's application list in Windows 11.

If you use Windows like I did, you will still get some shortcuts you don't want, like a pinned link to download a local LinkedIn app, but nothing major.

Framework sells its Desktop with a one-year warranty.

Framework Desktop Configurations

We tested the $1,599 variant of the Framework Desktop, pairing a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor featuring Radeon 8060S graphics and 64GB of RAM. With our review unit, Framework included a 1TB WD Black SN7100 ($99), a Cooler Master Mobius 120 CPU fan ($22), a power cable ($5), two USB Type-C and two USB Type-A expansion cards ($11 each), and three sets of tiles (two $10 black sets and a $15 red set, plus a custom Tom's Hardware tile, which you can't really put a price on), as well as five decal tiles and two blank tiles ($5 each and $3 each, respectively). Add that all up, and it's $1,835. We installed Windows 11 Home on our own, but if Framework included it, the company charges $139 for the download.

The cheapest configuration, before any add-ons, is $1,099 with a Ryzen AI Max 385 with lesser Radeon 8050S graphics and 32GB of RAM. The highest step up, and a shoe-in for people interested in local AI, is a $1,999 option with the same processor as our review unit, but with a whopping 128GB of memory.

There are a number of other add-ons. While our review unit came with the standard black side panel, a clear one will cost you $40. Tiles come in various colors, and there are $5 options with logos for AMD and a number of Linux distros. While I think that expansion cards with USB Type-A and Type-C make the most sense for the expansion slots, Framework sells all of the same options it has for its website, including storage, Ethernet, and a microSD card slot, should you want them. I feel that the desktop should come with a set of blank tiles; it's an incomplete system without the front of the chassis.

There are a variety of fan and storage options, though you can also bring your own instead of paying Framework. Those are the only two major components that you can change out, so they're important choices.

I think the fact that Framework charges for the power cable for a desktop is kind of obnoxious. Enthusiasts may have extras, but this isn't a phone where everyone has extra cheap cables around their house. For a system, this should come in the box.

Bottom Line

The Framework Desktop offers a lot of power for a small system. AMD's Strix Halo shows off in Framework's 4.5-liter case, delivering strong 1080p gaming performance for a system that doesn't have a discrete GPU. You can have a solid 1080p system that fits on your desk and doesn't get in the way.

But the system doesn't feel entirely like Framework. The fact that it's less repairable and upgradeable than the company's laptops is odd, but it's the cost of using a mobile processor, which is soldered to the board, along with soldered RAM (which is effectively necessary for the chip the team chose). It's not wrong, but it will likely make the system less appealing for many potential buyers who aren’t specifically interested in AI.

Despite all of that, I've become enamored with the system during my time with it. It's versatile, small, and surprisingly powerful for its size. Despite its plastic casing, it's pretty cute.

The real issue is price. For the $1,599 our review unit starts at — before all of the components and an OS, you can get a decent gaming PC with a discrete GPU. For over $1,800 as ours was configured, you can get a nice one. So if you're going for gaming, a bigger machine with more traditional desktop pieces makes more sense, and will be more customizable down the line, too. (It may, however, have less RAM.) I don't fault Framework for offering a DIY edition to its enthusiast-forward fanbase, but I do think its pricing should consider everything you need to add. That's before you get nickeled and dimed with effectively mandatory tiles for the front of the chassis.

In competition with something like the Mac Mini, you can really only compare to Apple's most expensive configuration with a 12-core M4 Pro CPU, 16-core GPU, 24GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD storage for $1,399. Bumping to 1TB of storage and 64GB of RAM is a minimum of $2,199, so while the Mac is a huge budget for light productivity starting at $599, it isn't necessarily a budget competitor on the high end. The Mac Studio starts at $1,999 with an M4 Max and 36GB of RAM.

That leaves the Framework in a place as a solid small system for people who need a ton of RAM. There's a reason the company has pitched it for running local LLM's — that's who the system makes the most sense for. If you're going to make use of this much RAM with a mobile CPU and a tiny chassis, there may be value here, as well as the fun of putting parts of the system together yourself. But for everyone else, a stronger gaming rig or a cheaper productivity system might do the job — and will come with everything you need out of the box.

Between the high price of top-end GPUs, ever-evolving tariff pressures, and just general inflation, it's easy to get put off from PC gaming when it seems like every new rig costs several thousand dollars. But companies like CyberPowerPC have long specialized in delivering the best bang for your PC gaming buck (particularly when you don't want to build your own PC), and systems that are on the more affordable end of the spectrum.

And that's exactly what the Gamer Supreme SLC11260CPG is: a mainstream gaming tower that pairs AMD's best CPU for gaming with a 16GB RTX 5060 Ti for solid 1440p and 1080p performance at a sub-$2,000 price that feels downright affordable these days. The fact that it also comes in a white case with a matching 360mm AIO and peripherals is a nice touch if you don't like basic black.

Of course, there are some drawbacks that come with this system's affordability. The case isn't as premium as you'll find with competitors like the Corsair Vengeance a7500. And don't expect cutting-edge connectivity: USB on the back tops out at 5 Gbps; the Ethernet port is good-old Gigabit; and the wireless chip tops out at Wi-Fi 6.

And obviously, you won't be playing modern games at 4K on this system unless you're willing to turn the settings way down or software tricks like Multi Frame Generation way up. But so long as you keep your performance expectations in check, the CyberPowerPC Gamer Supreme is a very good option for those who want a gaming PC without paying more than $2,000.

CyberPowerPC Gamer Supreme (SLC11260CPG) specifications

Design of the CyberpowerPC Gamer Supreme

If you like white PCs that include RGB, then the Gamer Supreme should appeal to you – just don't look too close. The front and part of the side are mesh, which is good news for airflow, while a glass panel gives you a decent look at what's inside. There are seven matching white RGB fans, three of which are on the 360 mm AIO, which is also white. But that's where the color matching ends, as the GPU and MSI motherboard are both black.

The case that CyberPowerPC chose is decent in terms of airflow, but it could be a bit nicer. It has mesh where it counts f, but the areas where panels meet at the corners aren't as flush as I'd like. See the top seam in particular in the image below. It's not awful, and you might be spending more time looking through the side window at the internal components. But the best PC cases are certainly nicer than what comes with this system – even our budget picks.

There are seven RGB fans, though, and a button in the front lets you control the lighting without having to deal with clunky software. There's something to be said for being able to press one button to cycle through colors on all the fans at once. That said, those color changes don't work with the included peripherals.

The company includes a keyboard and mouse that are also white, and they are a step or two above the pack-ins you get with most big-name brands (I'm looking at you, Alienware Area-51). The mouse in particular feels pretty good, and has some heft that helps it avoid feeling cheap. The keyboard also looks good, with RGB lighting and a volume rocker on the left. But while it felt OK to type and game on, this is a membrane keyboard, not mechanical. And both peripherals are wired. Considering there are decent mechanical keyboards that cost less than $50 these days, it would be nice to get something better in the box, but what CyberPowerPC includes with the Gamer Supreme is still better than what's included with most of the competition.

Ports and Upgradeability on the CyberpowerPC Gamer Supreme

Aside from the power and RGB lighting buttons on the front, the Gamer Supreme also has a pair of 5 Gbps USB-A ports, a 5 Gbps USB-C port, and separate headphone and mic jacks. Their placement on the front bottom of the case pretty much necessitates that you put the case on your desk if you want to use them, though. Personally, I prefer these ports up top.

The Gigabyte B850 Gaming WIFI6 motherboard in our review unit has two empty M.2 slots and four SATA if you want to add to the included 2TB ADATA PCIe 4.0 M.2 boot drive.

Around back, you get another 5 Gbps USB-C port, two faster 10 Gbs USB-A ports (in red), two 5 Gbps USB-A (blue), and four USB 2.0 Type-A ports (black). Also here is a simple three-port (mic, line out, line in) audio stack, the antenna plugs, and a PS/2 port for a jurassic peripheral. There are also HDMI and DisplayPorts here, but of course you'll want to plug your display(s) into the GPU.

The Asus-branded RTX 5060 Ti 16GB sports a single HDMI 2.1b port and three DisplayPorts.

Readers have commented in the past about the no-name or bargain-basement power supplies that often get used in prebuilts. The one installed in our review unit of the Gamer Supreme is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it's actually an 850W model, despite Nvidia recommending just 600W for a system with an RTX 5060 TI. And it's a non-modular model with a 12VHPWR connector, so this system is technically ready to handle a higher-end graphics card upgrade at some point.

But don't expect a well-known or well-respected PSU brand here. Our review unit uses a High Power HP1-S2850GD-F12S, which claims an 80 Plus Gold efficiency rating, with Japanese "main capacitors." We had zero issues with the power supply in our testing, and the extra wattage overhead is certainly appreciated. But I'm sure many buyers would appreciate a more well-known brand.

The cable management looks a bit rushed, but is more or less in line with mainstream PCs from better-known brands. It kept the side panel from bulging, everything stayed connected as expected, and most users aren't ever going to look behind the motherboard unless something breaks, anyway. It's easily good enough.

Gaming Performance on the CyberPowerPC Gamer Supreme

Though it's not a top-of-the-line gaming rig, CyberPowerPC's system includes the best CPU for gaming, AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D, paired with 32GB of RAM and a lower-end (but still plenty capable) RTX 5060 Ti. This is the first system we've tested with a current-gen Nvidia GPU in this price range, so this machine isn't going to dominate our benchmarks. But at under $1,900, it's also not going to dominate your wallet in the same way the Corsair Vengeance a7500 will, either (it was $2,799 with an RTX 5070 Ti, as tested).

We also compared the CyberPowerPC system to a Corsair system from late last year, the Vengeance i7600, with an RXT 4070 Super and an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K. That system was discounted to just $2,099 when we tested it, but that configuration is now out of stock at Best Buy and Corsair's web store.

Using the CyberPowerPC Gamer Supreme, I sliced, blocked, and punched my way through the Sentinel Barracks level of Doom: The Dark Ages. And while I had to dial the resolution down to 1440p and the settings defaulted to Medium, the game ran north of 70 frames per second, even in the most heated battles. The game often jumped into the triple digits when I wasn't surrounded by demons. Also important: the 360 mm AIO and case fans were barely louder than they were at the desktop while I played, even though I was running the game on mute on a quiet Monday in our office. If low-volume gaming is important to you, the Gamer Supreme is a good option, at least in this configuration.

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, using the game’s Highest detail preset, the Gamer Supreme was significantly behind the pricier competing systems, as expected. But at 149 FPS at 1080p, there is plenty of frame rate overhead. And even at 4K and 46 FPS, the game would clearly be playable by reducing a few settings.

Shifting gears to the much more demanding Cyberpunk 2077 on the game’s Ray Tracing Ultra preset, the limitations of the Gamer Supreme's 5060 Ti are much more apparent. You'll definitely want to stick to 1080p with this title, and you'll want to knock some settings down or use some of Nvidia's software tricks to keep performance in the 60 FPS range.

In Far Cry 6, at the game’s Ultra preset, the Gamer Supreme approaches 60 FPS at 4K, while easily maintaining triple digits at 1080p. In fact, its 138 FPS average manages to best the Vengeance i7600, which is bottlenecked by its Core Ultra CPU at tha resolution.

Again, the Gamer Supreme delivers similar performance to the Vengeance i7600 in Red Dead Redemption 2, using the game’s Medium preset — likely due to the latter's Intel CPU limiting frame rates. Still, you'll want to stick to 1080p or 1440p in this demanding game unless you have a more powerful graphics card, like the 5070 Ti in the Vengeance a7500.Lastly, in Borderlands 3, at the game’s Badass preset, we see a wider performance spread. But the Gamer Supreme easily achieves triple-digit frame rates at 1080p, and is close enough to 60 FPS at 4K that you could get there by disabling a few settings. Still, given the capabilities of the RTX 5060 Ti, expect to mostly stick to 1440p and 1080p with most demanding games.

We use Metro Exodus to stress test gaming PCs, running a 15-loop marathon, to simulate a half hour of gaming. The CyberpowerPC Gamer Supreme averaged 145.88 frames per second (FPS), with effectively no variance, ranging from a low of 104.79 FPS and a high of 104.82. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU maintained an average temperature of 46.48 degrees Celsius throughout the test, while the RTX 5060 Ti got a little warmer, at 61.82 degrees C. Both are well within the expected range, indicating the case and cooler are doing their job. And again, that job was accomplished quietly on our review unit.

Productivity Performance on the CyberPowerPC Gamer Supreme

While the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 16GB of RAM, and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD in the CyberPowerPC Gamer Supreme isn't the most potent productivity combo, that doesn't mean the system can't handle demanding tasks beyond just games. But if you want more memory or storage, the motherboard has two spare M.2 slots, and two RAM slots are unoccupied in this configuration.

In the Geekbench 6 synthetic CPU benchmark, the Gamer Supreme's score of 3335 on the single-core side was enough to put it in the lead. It also edged past the Vengeance a7500 on the multi-core test slightly, despite both systems having the same CPU (perhaps a testament to the 360 mm AIO cooler on the Cyberpower system. The Vengeance i7600 and its Core Ultra 7 265K pulled ahead with its extra cores over the X3D AMD CPU, but not as far as you might think considering the Core Ultra chip has 12 more physical cores.

Intel's extra cores proved their worth, though, in our Handbrake test, which transcodes a 4K video to 1080p, with the Vengeance i7600 finishing in just under two minutes, while the two other Ryzen 7 9800X3D-powered systems took roughly a minute longer.

We also ran our 25 GB file transfer test on the primary storage drive. Here, the Gamer Supreme landed in second place, with a decent showing of 1,664.11 MBps with its ADATA PCIe 4.0 SSD. But the Corsair drive in the Vengeance a700 was much faster, delivering 2659.94 MBps on the same test.

CyberpowerPC Gamer Supreme Configurations

CyberpowerPC sells a large number of systems on its own site, but the Gamer Supreme is the company's retail line, available at stores like Walmart, Adorama, and Best Buy. The latter is where you'll find our review configuration, available for $1,859 when this was written. And even at Best Buy, we counted a whopping 94 different models, with prices ranging from $779 (Ryzen 5 5500, RX 6500 XT) to $5,099 (Ryzen 9 9950X, RTX 5090), with several different cases used across the expansive lineup. So if you don't like the looks of this model, or want something more or less powerful or affordable, there is no shortage of options with the Gamer Supreme lineup at Best Buy.

For mainstream gaming, the RTX 5060 Ti / Ryzen 7 9800X3D configuration we tested should serve you well. That said, if you're willing to go the Intel route, you can get a configuration with a Core i9 14900F and an RTX 5070 (a significantly more powerful GPU) for $1,899. That system also has what looks to be a nicer case, though it's black rather than white. The better GPU alone is easily worth the $40 price difference. But with 90 other models to choose from, depending on your budget, you could spend a lot of time narrowing down the best option for you.

As always, you can of course save money if you build your gaming PC yourself. To get a sense of how much Cyberpower charges for assembly (plus of course, the one-year warranty and customer service), I put together a similar build at Newegg, and wound up with a little over $1,600 worth of components in my cart – not counting Windows. So you're paying about $150 more than the cost of the parts, assuming you have to pay the retail price for Windows 11. That's not nothing, but it's not a lot if you're the kind of person who gets a lot more excited about gaming than about building.

Bottom Line

With the best gaming CPU and an RTX 5060 Ti (with 16GB of VRAM), the CyberPowerPC Gamer Supreme is a solid option for mainstream gaming, with a reasonable price of $1,859. If you spend a little more, you can find systems (CyberPowerPC or otherwise) with a more powerful RTX 5070 (though usually a somewhat worse CPU). But our review system was easily able to handle modern games so long as you weren't trying to play at 4K or always stay in the triple-digit FPS range.

I don't love the case that CyberPowerPC chose for this build, but there are dozens of other options available at Best Buy, and the included 360 mm AIO case fans did a good job of keeping things cool and quiet during gaming. If you want to play modern games with minimal noise and you don't want to spend more than $1,900, this Gamer Supreme should serve you well. Just leave some money in your budget to get a real mechanical keyboard.

When most people think of a $600 gaming PC, they picture plastic-heavy cases, stock coolers, and enough RGB to light up a dorm room. But one builder decided that wasn’t enough; innovation was necessary, and documenting it even more so. Armed with a 3D printer, a can of graphite spray paint, and some surprisingly premium broom handles, Christian Selig on YouTube, transformed a modest build into a personalized showcase piece—one that plays Cyberpunk at 4K and looks like it belongs in a design studio, mostly because it mimics Apple's cheese-grater Mac Pro.

In the video, our host starts with a list of requirements for his perfect gaming PC: it must be cheap, it must be compact, it must have room for upgrades, and it should perform like a modern computer without compromises. That's a high bar that already eliminates many options like handhelds, mini PCs, expensive ITX cases and instead, focuses the builder to rely on some creative part-hunting. As such, Christian gathered a lot of research and landed on some great deals—like those in our Amazon Prime Day roundup—and bought everything new except for the CPU and GPU, which were acquired from Facebook Marketplace.

You might've noticed an interesting omission from the list above: the case, and that's because Christian's entire build is centered around having the perfect chassis to house his components in, so he made one. Instead of going for popular mATX options like the Cooler Master NR200 or the Lian Li A3, he chose the Sama IM01. It's made from metal, has a sleek design, and only costs $60—all for a case with only 22L of volume, making it shockingly close to an actual SFF case (which are categorized under 20 liters). That being said, some things about the case, like the lack of USB-C in its front I/O and a poorly ventilated front panel, forced Christian to think of ways to improve the build. He remembered how much he admired the Mac Pro's cheese-grater design and quickly got to work.

First, he designed a new front panel in CAD software that would clip on the rest of the case to give it that Mac Pro finish. After taking some measurements and reading up on documentation online, the first 3D print came out great, and it was quickly followed by a second, final print. This new model had the exact cutouts Christian wanted for the USB-C ports, along with a custom power button lifted straight from the I/O of the actual front panel. He also added a 3D-printed fine mesh behind the panel to filter out dust. Some desoldering and resoldering later, the new front panel had a new power button along with a white power LED. However, due to the DIY nature of 3D printing, it definitely needed some polish.

After a quick trip to Home Depot, the modder returned with enough primer and paint to cover his house. The front panel was sanded to give the circular cutouts a cleaner finish, and a satin coat was applied to give the look of brushed metal, matching the design of the real Mac Pro. Christian also replaced the default case feet with fancy new wooden ones made from broomsticks he had found at Home Depot. He cut up the brooms to get smaller pieces, carved them out, polished them, and they ended up looking like tasteful walnut, offsetting the brutality of metal on his desk.

A couple of small things followed, like installing Windows and all the necessary drivers required for the GPU and motherboard—a seemingly unprecedented task for a Mac user. The first games Christian tested on his new PC were Cyberpunk 2077... at 4K. Thankfully, he used the new Transformer model of DLSS, which pushed his framerates past the 40s; that's still mighty impressive for a 3060 Ti. Stardew Valley and Black Myth: Wukong also ran just fine, but the CPU did get a little toasty at around 85 degrees. That might not be ideal for AM4, but it is to be expected when the 5600 is sitting under the stock cooler inside a compact chassis.

The entire video is masterfully edited, with a real flow to the storytelling. There's even a stop-motion sequence in there, along with tons of beautiful B-roll shots, so it's worth checking out for yourself. The final build ended up costing $642, with just the parts costing only $596. Despite the customization, Christian's gaming PC cost him less than $700, which was the exact goal he set out to achieve at the start of the video. For someone who's used to console gaming, the PS5 Pro was his benchmark and even if his PC doesn't offer 1:1 performance to that, it's still a great machine deserving of the "custom gaming PC" moniker.

PC gaming is an expensive hobby. Even people buying top-tier systems appreciate a good deal, allowing them to spend more on games. Alienware's most powerful rig, the Area-51, is several thousand dollars (how many thousands depends on how you configure it).

In competition with Amazon Prime Day, Dell is offering a few of its gaming PCs on sale, including its latest model, which comes armed with an Nvidia RTX 5080 gaming GPU.

• Check out all the deals in Dell's "Black Friday in July".

A configuration of the Area-51 with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, Intel Core Ultra 7 265, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, an 850W PSU, and a 240mm liquid cooler for the CPU is down from $3,899 to $3,499.

In our Alienware Area-51 review, we praised the system for its quiet operation (despite the lack of a rear fan), strong gaming performance, and a ton of ports, including Thunderbolt 4. And Dell is using mostly standardized parts on this unit, though replacing the motherboard does require a kit that's sold separately.

(In the charts below, note that we tested the system with an RTX 5090.)

Given that it's difficult to find the RTX 5080 for its $999.99 MSRP, finding a good deal on a pre-built system can be worthwhile if you don't mind that someone else chose your parts.

And since Alienware has finally opted for mostly standardized parts, there's room for upgrades in this case down the line, thanks to multiple PCIe SSD slots and plenty of room for lengthy GPUs.

We are working hard to find the best computer hardware deals for you this Amazon Prime Day. We cover the hottest deals in real-time at our Best Amazon Prime Day Deals Live page. If you're looking for more savings, check out our Amazon Prime Day deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

An old Optima SP 26 electric typewriter has found a new purpose in life. Although the typewriter was unrepairable and lacked several internal parts, an inventive Redditor, maniek-86, transformed it into a fully operational gaming typewriter.

Space is a luxury in these projects, as one repurposes old devices into functioning personal computers. According to the Redditor, the Optima SP 26 had minimal room available.

All components are closely packed within the typewriter, and sometimes some hot glue was necessary to keep everything in place. The creator does not appear to be a committed expert in converting vintage devices into sleeper PCs. Instead of utilizing cutting-edge hardware, the Redditor adapted the Optima SP 26 using spare components that were previously unused.

The MSI H110M Pro-D serves as the core of the gaming typewriter. It's an LGA1151 motherboard equipped with the H110 chipset, restricting the processor choices to older Skylake and Kaby Lake chips. The Redditor equipped the motherboard with an Intel Core i5-6600 processor, 4GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 240GB SATA SSD. There's even a discrete graphics card inside.

The 12-year-old GeForce GT 635 from the Kepler era powers the gaming typewriter. The Reddit user noted that the MSI H110M Pro-D has a "missing PCIe x16 slot," which is peculiar given that the motherboard does include a PCIe 3.0 x16 expansion slot.

It's unclear whether the expansion slot is damaged or the reasoning behind the "missing" comment. Despite this, maniek-86 utilized a PCIe riser to connect the graphics card to the motherboard, likely through one of the two PCIe 2.0 x1 expansion slots.

The RTX 5090 is Nvidia's top-of-the-line card, which makes it the fastest consumer graphics card you can buy right now. But can you actually buy it? Most places are sold out of the RTX 5090 and prices from scalpers on eBay range from $3,400 to more than $4,000 for a card that's supposed to sell for around $1,999.

Fortunately, you can get a fully-loaded Alienware Area-51 desktop with an RTX 5090 inside for not much more than the bare card. For $4,899, reduced from $5,499, during Memorial Day weekend, you can get an Area-51 with a Core Ultra 9 285K CPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a 2TB SSD, a 1,500-watt power supply, Alienware's snazzy case and that RTX 5090 you've been dreaming of.

We had a chance to review a similarly-configured Alienware Area-51 with RTX 5090 inside and came away impressed with its performance. In the review, we compared it to RTX 4090-powered desktops we had tested in the past.

At 1080p, the Area-51's Core Ultra 9 285K CPU held it back a little bit in comparison to competitors with the better but older Core i9-14900K processor. But when you step up to 4K resolution, you see more of a difference between the old and the new.

On Red dead Redemption 2, It scored 109 fps at Medium Settings (this is a very demanding title) , eclipsing competitors at that resolution by at least 29 fps.

With ray tracing enabled in Cyberpunk 2077, the differences were also stark, with it beating its nearest competitor by at more than 20 percent.

Overall, this is about as powerful of a gaming desktop as you can get.

If you've been looking to pick up a cheap gaming PC to enter the PC gaming scene, get your hands on cheaper games and better modding support, this could be a useful deal for you. It's a no-nonsense, practical build that will perform like a current-generation games console (ish) but can tweak a game's video settings to a greater extent for a better experience.

Available from AWD-IT, this prebuilt Air Mesh Ryzen 5 5500 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Gaming PC is just £549, saving £400. With a selection of components that also includes the RAM, storage, and PSU, this PC comes complete with almost everything you need to start gaming straight away.

There is, however, one thing missing, and that's the OS or operating system. You can install your own Linux-based OS or pick up a copy of Windows cheaply or for free and install it yourself. If that's a little too complicated for you, then you can select a copy of Windows in the drop-down menu, but this will cost you an extra £89

This system is pretty barebones, but you can add to it at a later date if you wish. It's easy to upgrade with more RAM or more storage, like a 1TB SSD or higher. To give you an idea, the price of just the RTX 4060 GPU is around £270, so you're picking up every other part, including the case, motherboard, RAM, CPU, PSU, SSD, etc, for just £279. Plus, you also get free shipping included.

In a time when AI is sprawling everywhere, from your mobile phones to video games, imagine if the same reached your PC, literally. MSI's Computex 2025 booth has a very interesting gaming pre-built, namely the MEG Vision X AI, the front face of which cosplays as an "AI Human Machine Interface," thanks to the attached 13-inch touchscreen and a slew of AI goodies, if that suits your fancy.

Under the hood, the Vision X AI can be configured with Intel's latest Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200S processors (Ultra 9 285K/Ultra 7 265K) along with an RTX 50 series GPU (RTX 5070 Ti to the RTX 5090) from MSI’s Shadow, Ventus, or Gaming families. Combined, the RTX 5090 can deliver 3,400 TFLOPS of FP4 performance, while Arrow Lake's NPU sits at a modest 13 TOPS of INT8, and MSI makes sure none of this compute power goes to waste. The system was first showcased at Computex last year, followed by the official unveiling at CES this year.

The built-in AI HMI (Human Machine Interface) intelligently detects the user activity and adjusts performance settings accordingly. By default, the display shows PC statistics such as CPU/GPU temperatures, clock speeds, fan RPM, while serving as your personal AI-hub for interfacing with various LLMs, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Meta, and Claude. It features a built-in microphone and speaker that will let you issue commands to either the MSI app or Microsoft Copilot.

MSI also includes a cloud-independent model for chatting and generating images, which runs locally on your machine. If inferencing AI is not your niche, this 13-inch touchscreen can double up as a secondary monitor for YouTube or OBS, but the bezels are rather distracting.

When it comes to the best gaming PCs available for consumers, there’s an embarrassment of riches covering a wide variety of price points. Today, we have the Corsair Vengeance a7500, which includes plenty of high-end hardware to satisfy demanding gamers.

The system is loaded to the gills with an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, 32GB of DDR5 memory, a 1TB PCIE 5.0 SSD, a Corsair Nautilus 240mm water cooling unit, and an attractive Corsair 3500X mid-tower case. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that the Vengeance a7500 is rocking a Blackwell-based GPU, in this case, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti.

However, all that of hardware goodness means that the Vengeance a7500 pushes the upper boundaries of pricing for mainstream pre-built gaming desktops with an MSRP of $2,799.99.

Corsair Vengeance a7500 Specifications

Design of the Corsair Vengeance a7500

As the young folks say, the Vengeance a7500’s design is “lit” in more ways than one. Corsair's 3500X mid-tower case is staid and attractive with tempered glass for the front and left side panels. The side panels, in particular, are worth mentioning, as they feature a tool-less design. The bottom-hinged panels attach to the chassis using friction pins, allowing you to pull outward to remove and push back in to reinstall. It’s simple, effective, and highly preferable to dealing with Phillips or thumb screws.

Numerous Y-shaped ventilation cutouts are located on the bottom of the chassis and on the right side panel, where there’s a vertical strip of cutouts corresponding to the three stacked 120mm ARGB cooling fans. The top panel is also fully ventilated and occupied by two additional 120mm ARGB cooling fans. The final 120mm ARGB fan is on the back of the case. The top, bottom, and right side panels have removable mesh dust filters installed.

But the RGB light show doesn’t end there: the two DDR5-6400 modules also incorporate RGB into their heat spreaders, the AIO liquid cooler features an RGB element, and the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Gaming OC 16G graphics card has an RGB-lit Gigabyte logo. Given the expansive view inside the case due to the generous use of glass, the Vengeance a7500 is a visual treat for the eyes, whether the PC is sitting on the floor or on top of your desk.

The Vengeance a7500 measures 9.45 x 18.11 x 19.92 inches and weighs 31 pounds. For comparison, the Corsair Vengeance i7600 measures 9.45 x 19.92 x 18.11 inches, while the Alienware Area-51 is 9.12 x 22.4 x 24.04 inches.

Ports and Upgradability on the Corsair Vengeance a7500

Once you get past the visual treats, you’ll notice that the top of the chassis contains a power button, reset button, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, and a 3.5 mm headphone/mic combo jack.

Corsair fitted our Vengeance a7500 with an MSI Pro X870-P Wi-Fi motherboard, which supports AM5 chips from AMD’s Ryzen 7000, 8000, and 9000 series (our review unit had a Ryzen 7 9800X3D installed). The motherboard features a single HDMI port (for the integrated Radeon graphics), two USB-C ports (one 20 Gbps, one 40 Gbps), four USB 2.0 Type-A ports, two USB 5 Gbps Type-A ports, and two USB 10 Gbps Type-A ports. There is also a 5 GbE LAN port, three audio connectors, two ports for connecting the included antenna for the onboard Wi-Fi 7 adapter, along with clear CMOS and flash BIOS buttons.

The Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Gaming OC graphics card has three DisplayPort 2.1b ports and one HDMI 2.1b port.

The motherboard includes four PCIe x16 slots, with PCI_E1 supporting up to PCIe 5.0 x16 for Ryzen 9000 and Ryzen 9000 processors. PCI_E2 and PCI_E3 support up to PCIe 3.0 x1, and PCI_E4 supports PCIe 4.0 x4. There are three onboard M.2 slots, with M.2_1 supporting up to PCIe 5.0 x4 (our review unit’s M.2_1 slot was populated by a Corsair MP700 Elite 1TB PCIe 5.0 SSD. There are four DDR5 memory slots on the MSI Pro X870-P Wi-Fi motherboard, two of which were filled with 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6400 modules on our review unit.

If you need to add internal storage beyond what the three M.2 slots can offer, a removable drive plate can accommodate up to two HDDs and two additional SSDs simultaneously.

Gaming Performance on the Corsair Vengeance a7500

The Vengeance a7500 packs some pretty impressive hardware, starting with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, which ranks as one of our best CPUs for gaming. That processor is backed by 32GB of DDR5-6400 memory, and is paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics card.

We don’t have a full assortment of Blackwell-equipped gaming desktops in our test database yet, but we do have the Alienware Area-51 (Core Ultra 9 285K, RTX 5090, and a far more expensive $5,759.99) for comparison. We also used the Vengeance i7600 (Core Ultra 7 265K, RTX 4070 Super) to compare Blackwell against a previous-generation GPU.

With a sticker price well north of $2,000, I expected great performance from the Vengeance a7500 and wasn’t disappointed. I’ve been spending a lot of time recently playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and I played the game on my 240 Hz DQHD (5120 x 1440) gaming monitor. With all of the detail settings cranked up, I saw performance of around 100 to 120 frames per second (FPS).

Switching gears to our usual battery of gaming tests, I started with the Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest setting). The Vengeance a7500 commanded 261 FPS at 1080p and 89 FPS at 4K resolution. For comparison, that performance bettered the Vengeance i7600 with an RTX 4070 Super by nearly 70 FPS and 26 FPS, respectively. The Area 51 didn't quite match the Vengeance a7500 at 1080p, with only 244 FPS (likely due to the fact that the Ryzen 9800X3D is the stronger gaming CPU), but it obliterated it at 4K, delivering 169 FPS.

The Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark (Medium settings) also showed strong performance from the Vengeance a7500. The Vengeance managed over 94 FPS at 1080p and nearly 30 FPS at 4K. Of course, the Area-51 with its RTX 5090 dominated the field, with 122 FPS at 1080p, nearly doubling the a7500's 4K performance with 57 FPS.

Far Cry 6 (Ultra settings) is a CPU-intensive game, and the Vengeance a7500 showed its gaming prowess over the two Intel-based competitors assembled. At 1080p, the Vengeance a7500 and its RTX 5070 Ti took a commanding lead with 197 FPS compared to 124 FPS for the Vengeance i7600 and 126 FPS for the Area-51. However, with the resolution cranked to 4K, the Area-51 managed a win with 119 FPS compared to 105 FPS for the Vengeance a7500.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium settings) has been a thorn in the side for many of the Blackwell-equipped gaming systems we've tested, especially at 1080p. While the Area-51 couldn't complete the benchmark at 1080p when we reviewed it due to driver issues, the Vengeance a7500 achieved 174 FPS compared to just 107 FPS for the Vengeance i7600. Switching to 4K, the Area-51 flexed its mighty RTX 5090 muscle with 109 FPS compared to 67.47 FPS for the Vengeance a7500.

Our final gaming benchmark is Borderlands 3 (Badass setting), another CPU-heavy game. This time around, the Vengeance a7500 hit 226.70 FPS at 1080p and 94.26 FPS at 4K. This put the system well ahead of the Vengeance i7600 (176 FPS and 67 FPS, respectively) but well shy of the Area-51, which managed 251 FPS at 1080p and 119 FPS at 4K.

Metro Exodus remains our go-to for stress testing, and through a 15-loop marathon, the Vengeance a7500 averaged 145.96 FPS.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D averaged 5.04 GHz during the stress test, while the CPU measured 49.36 degrees Celsius. As for the RTX 5070 Ti, its maximum GPU clock was 2,735 MHz at an average temperature of 57.75 C.

Productivity Performance on the Corsair Vengeance a7500

The Vengeance a7500 is a speedy performer in the productivity department, thanks to its Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, 32GB of DDR5 memory, and a speedy 1TB PCIe 5.0 SSD.

The Geekbench 6 synthetic CPU benchmark showed that the Vengeance a7500, with its Ryzen 7 9800X3D barely slid into first place with 3,247 on the single-core score. However, the two Intel-based rivals turned with more cores upped the heat on the multi-core benchmark, with the Area-51 leading the field with 21,786 compared to 18,124 for the Vengeance a7500.

Thanks to its PCIe 5.0 SSD, the Vengeance a7500 led its competitors significantly on our file transfer test (which involves transferring 25GB of mixed media files). It managed 2,659.94 Mbps, compared to 1,585.18 Mbps for the Vengeance i7600 and 1,898.26 Mbps for the Area-51.

Finally, our Handbrake benchmark saw this most significant setback for the Vengeance a7500 compared to the competition. We transcode a 4K video file to 1080p during this test, and the Vengeance a7500 completed the task in just over three minutes. However, the Vengeance i7600 and Area-51 finished in under two minutes.

Software and Warranty on the Corsair Vengeance a7500

Corsair ships the Vengeance a7500 with Windows 11 Home and one of its own utilities: Corsair Diagnostics. The app, as its name implies, allows you to view system information, run stress tests, and perform checkup utilities on your desktop.

The company’s oft-maligned iCUE app is not installed from the factory, although I chose to install it on my own. Once installed, iCUE gives you handy readouts of critical temperatures for your CPU and GPU. The app also allowed me to control the RGB effects on the Vengeance DDR5 modules, but not the case fans or the RGB element on the AIO water cooler.

The Vengeance a7500 comes with a two-year manufacturer's warranty. That's longer than the one year you get on many prebuilt machines.

Corsair Vengeance a7500 Configurations

The Vengeance a7500 is available in several configurations, direct from Corsair. Our review unit features a Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6400 memory, a 1TB Corsair MP700 Elite PCIe 5.0 SSD, an MSI Pro X870-P WIFI, a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Gaming OC, a Corsair 850W 80+ Gold power supply, and a Corsair Nautilus 240mm water cooler. The price of admission is $2,799.99, which is a princely sum for a gaming desktop. However, it comes nowhere close to the $5,759.99 asking price of the Alienware Area-51 and its RTX 5090.

Corsair also offers configurations with RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 GPUs and more potent CPUs, if you prefer. For example, a configuration with a Ryzen 9 9900X3D, RTX 5090, 32GB of DDR5, and 2TB SSD costs $3,999.99. If you want to go all out, a system with a Ryzen 9 9900X3D, RTX 5090, 64GB of DDR5, and 4TB of SSD storage costs a whopping $6,899.99.

If you want to branch out with a Radeon RX 9700XT processor instead of the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, Best Buy offers the Vengeance a7500 for $3,199.99. Best Buy also offers a Call of Duty Warzone Edition of the Vengeance a7500 with a Radeon 9070 XT GPU, and 2TB SSD for $3,399.99. In addition, there’s another Call of Duty Warzone Edition with a GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 2TB SSD for $3,399.99.

Just for comparison, if you were to purchase all the components separately for the a7500 and put it together yourself, it would cost $2,533.89.

Bottom Line

Corsair continues to build high-quality, high-performance gaming desktops. The Vengeance a7500 is not only a great-looking rig with its generous use of tempered glass and copious amounts of RGB fans, but it also has plenty of ventilation to keep the internals cool under load.

Corsair's use of a Ryzen 7 9800X3D proved to be the perfect match for the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards. While the RTX 5070 Ti is obviously no match for the RTX 5090, we saw games exceed 60 FPS at 4K in all the games in our test suite, with the exception of Cyberpunk 2077.

Given that this is a Corsair rig, it's no surprise that the company tossed in some of its excellent hardware as well, including its branded 850W 80+ Gold PSU, Vengeance DDR5 memory, a super quick PCIe 5.0 SSD, a Nautilus liquid cooling system, and a two-year factory warranty. When you add it all up, you have a highly capable, albeit slightly pricey, gaming desktop that can handle your current and future gaming needs.

Asus has announced the new TUF Gaming T500 desktop, a small form factor PC for gamers. Unlike most traditional desktops, this compact PC is built around Intel’s mobile-class CPUs. Per the product page, the T500 can be configured with up to an Intel Core i7‑13620H, a 13th‑gen H‑series laptop chip with 6 performance, 4 efficiency cores, 16 threads, and boost clock speeds of 4.9GHz.

Asus claims that the T500 delivers “desktop-level gaming performance with much lower temperatures " by using this mobile CPU in a desktop chassis. That’s understandable, as laptop processors often run hot due to the cramped thermal constraints of a laptop chassis. However, heat should be far less of a concern in a full-sized desktop tower with better airflow and cooling potential.

On that note, the chassis features a rugged industrial design accented by RGB lighting on the front and offers users the choice between a tempered glass or solid side panel. Asus has equipped a custom air cooling setup for the mobile CPU, including a heatsink with a 90 mm fan and three heat pipes running across the processor. Based on its design, the cooler appears capable of keeping temperatures in check and maintaining high performance without thermal throttling.

Leave it to Alienware to make a statement. The pre-built PC company owned by Dell used to stand out with its spaceship-themed design. With its new, top-end Area-51 gaming desktop, Alienware is doing it with size.

The system is massive. The case is, finally, designed to fit parts that meet PC-building standards — a much-needed change that I hope trickles down to the lower-end Aurora desktops. You don't need a full-sized tower to do that, but this system also has large fans and room for some of the largest after-market graphics cards, which not all of the best gaming PCs can handle.

With options up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 and Intel Core Ultra 9 285K or up to the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, the machine is expensive. Those willing to shell out for it will get a strong gaming performer that's surprisingly quiet, as well as a great selection of ports.

Design of the Alienware Area-51

Finally, an Alienware desktop with industry-standard components. But to get that, you have to go all-in for a full desktop tower.

The Alienware Area-51 is a boat of a PC. While it looks very similar to the more compact Aurora R16, it's in a massive 80-liter chassis that measures 22.4 x 24.04 x 9.12 inches (569 x 610.5 x 231.6 mm). You should probably get a friend to help lift this 76.1-pound system out of the box.

The case is a white and silver affair, with a metal front and some plastic around the chassis. For this price, I would have preferred full aluminum. The glass side panel shows off the clean inside, with many of the components obscured by large heatsinks (a big improvement over the Aurora).

The whole front of the PC features an oblong RGB light ring around the air intake (and there's plenty of RGB inside the case, naturally). The system intakes through the front dual 180 mm fans and the two 140 mm spinners on the bottom. The fans on the 360 mm CPU liquid cooler's radiator (in our review unit, though some come with 240 mm radiators) up top are, oddly, also intake fans. The radiator is gasketed to prevent air from coming in or escaping around it. All of this air is pushed out of the back in a positive pressure scenario – there is no fan in the rear to guide the air out. In fact, there aren’t even mounting holes to install your own fan. Alienware representatives told me that in their simulations, placing a fan in the back made it harder for hot air to escape the case.

There are three dust filters: one at the top of the system for the radiator fans, one at the bottom for the fans by the PSU, and one at the front for the intake fans. It's a nice touch, as some prebuilts go without these pieces. Although for $5,000-plus, it should come with everything.

Systems we compared to the Area-51 are smaller, as most gaming PCs are these days. The Aurora R16 is 18.05 x 16.5 x 7.76 inches, while the Corsair Vengeance i7500 is 18.3 x 17.8 x 9.1 inches.

Alienware Area-51 Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the Alienware Area-51

This desktop has a pretty solid port selection. On top of the PC, there are a pair USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports, along with separate Mic in and headphone jacks.

Ports on the back are connected to Alienware's motherboard, which is slightly different between the Intel and AMD models. With Intel, I'm excited to see the two Thunderbolt 4 ports, as you don't see a ton of those on desktops. There are also two USB-C ports, four USB-A ports for older peripherals, an Ethernet jack, and a series of audio ports. The AMD model uses USB4 in lieu of Thunderbolt and also features an extra USB 2.0 port.

To get into the system, you have to remove a single screw that's meant for safety during shipping. There's no need to put it back (unless perhaps you’re moving and need to move the PC around a lot). From there, you twist a knob that unlocks the side panels, press a corresponding button for the side you want to open, and the panel drops down for you to easily remove.

In what mostly feels like a return to form for Alienware, the inside of the box is filled with industry-standard components. While there's a custom motherboard that Dell designed for this PC, it's a standard ATX size. You can replace the motherboard, but because the power button, fans, RGB lighting, and front I/O are controlled via a special AlenwareFX daughterboard on the backside of the case, you'll need to buy a $35 adapter kit to make the switch. Additionally, your motherboard needs to support the ATX12VO power supply, or you'll have to swap the PSU out, too.

Considering how pricey these PCs can be, I wish Alienware would make the motherboard adapter kit free to interested customers who have a receipt. But this is still a significant step up from the proprietary boards and non-standard case designs Alienware has been using for years.

The one problem I see some gamers having with the motherboard otherwise is that it has two DIMM slots for RAM. While Alienware offers up to 64GB of RAM, some people may prefer to start with less and add more as their budget allows, or might prefer more RAM for tasks like video editing. Alienware reps told me the choice for two slots prioritized speed over capacity.

The SSD slots (there are three, each under heatsinks) and RAM slots are easily accessible, and you can fit a quad-slot graphics card up to 450 mm in length into the PC, explaining why the other two PCI slots are so low down. The SK hynix boot drive is PCIe 4.0 (and plenty fast for gaming), but the top drive slot supports PCIe 5.0 for faster drives. The other two SSD slots are PCIe 4.0.

While our review unit came with a 360 mm AIO radiator, the system fits 240 mm, 280 mm, and 420 mm coolers as well (Dell doesn't sell those last two), so you could trade the Alienware-branded one out for your own in the future.

A 1,500W PSU using the emerging ATX12VO standard shouldn't need to be upgraded immediately, but the 850W option in some configurations might need replacing sooner. Finally, Dell is moving away from the server-style PSUs we see on the Aurora line into something you can easily swap out. I hope this change trickles down.

Near each major component, there's a QR code, similar to what I've seen on many of the Framework Laptops that I've reviewed. These codes bring you to parent company Dell's website, with step-by-step video guides on how to update or maintain the components.

The back side of the case has nice cable routing, which seems to be using precision-fit cables. There's room back here for two 2.5-inch SATA drives and a 3.5-inch drive for even more storage.

Gaming and Graphics on the Alienware Area-51

We tested two Area-51 review units: one with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and an RTX 5090, an another with a Ryzen 9 9950X3D with the same GPU. Unsurprisingly, that leads to some pretty powerful gaming performance.

We compared it to a series of systems with RTX 4090 GPUs, including the Alienware Aurora R16 and Corsair Vengeance i7500.

The Aurora and Corsair Vengeance both have Intel Core i9-14900K processors (the R16 has the KF variant), which are actually faster at gaming at resolutions below 4K than the more recent Core Ultra 9 285K, creating a bottleneck at 1080p. While I doubt people paying for RTX 5090 are going to often be playing at 1080p, competitive gamers who want to lower the resolution for a higher refresh rate might want to keep that in mind. Though in our testing of the newer Ryzen-based Area-51, it was only meaningfully faster in 4K at a few games.

I used the Intel-based Area-51 to push forward in my journey in Alan Wake 2. As I finally escaped a forest filled with hungry wolves and a cultist wearing a deer head, the game ran at its highest settings at quality render resolution (1440p) and ultra ray tracing with no issues. With 4x Frame Gen on, the game ran between 160 and 200 frames per second. Without frame gen, it hovered just under 60 FPS. The PC was remarkably quiet the entire time. I could hear fan noise — it wasn't silent — but it took a while until the fans needed to ramp up enough that I could be bothered by them.

When testing the AMD model, I tried playing the detailed Sims-style life simulator Inzoi, at the Ultra preset at 4K, with hardware RT on. The game ran between 67 and 83 FPS as I managed a family of 3 in a Los Angeles-style city. Surprisingly, I saw higher frames when I moved characters outside of their home.

On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark at the highest setting, the Intel Area-51 reached 244 FPS at 1080p and 169 FPS at 4K, while the AMD version was nearly identical. Both the Aurora and Vengeance outperformed at 1080p, but the Area-51 won out at 4K.

1080p scores were closer with Cyberpunk 2077 on Ray Tracing Ultra presets. The Area-51 reached 122 FPS, just 3 frames behind the Vengeance. Here, the Ryzen system fell short at 122 fps at 1080p, but was about the same at 4K.

Far Cry 6 is a CPU-heavy title, and the Ultra benchmark again showed the Core Ultra 9 285K's gaming limitations. At 4K, the 4090 in the Corsair actually snuck past the Intel Area-51's 5090. But it was the Ryzen-based Area-51 that fared the best, hitting 127 FPS at 4K.

The AMD Area-51 easily took the crown on Red Dead Redemption 2 at 4K on medium settings, netting an impressive compared to the Intel model at 109 FPS. The Ryzen system also showed a nice jump at 1080p (182 FPS vs 159 FPS).

Borderlands 3, another CPU-intensive title, put the Ryzen Area-51 ahead of the pack at 4K, reaching 166 FPS. But the Intel version was behind the Aurora and Vengeance once again. 251 FPS at 1080p and 119 FPS at 4K are nothing to sneeze at, but that's still slower than older hardware.

We stress test gaming desktops by running the Metro Exodus benchmark on a loop 15 times, which takes about half an hour. On that gauntlet, the Intel-based Area-51 achieved an average of 160.67 FPS. The Ryzen option averaged 164.55 FPS.

During the stress test, the Intel CPU's P cores ran at 5.12 GHz while the E cores reached 3.33 GHz. The CPU measured 56.75 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, the GPU ran at 2,708.93 MHz and measured 63.61 C. The system was again very quiet during the benchmark. I could definitely hear the fans, but they weren't roaring like they do on some systems.

Meanwhile, the AMD's Zen 5 cores averaged at 4.04 GHz and measured 58.7 C. The GPU ran at 1,741.43 MHz and measured 46.4 C. The AMD system was even quieter than the Intel one was during this test.

Productivity Performance on the Alienware Area-51

Both the Core Ultra 9 285K and Ryzen 9 9950X3D were on the ball when it comes to productivity work. Here, they're both paired with 64GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD.

On Geekbench 6, the Ryzen-based Area-51 earned the top single-core score of the group at 3,384148, just beating out the Core Ultra 9 version (3,148). The cooling in the Vengeance i7500 brought the multi-core score just a bit higher than the Intel Alienware's 21,786.

Alienware's tower transferred 25GB of files at a rate of 1,898.26 MBps with the Core 285K and a blazing 3,414.29 MBps in the 9950X3D system, beating the Vengeance but falling short of the Aurora. The difference between the two Intel systems is likely the different drives they were using. While they're both 2TB SSDs, the Intel system had a SK hynix PC811 while the AMD option came with a Samsung PM9E1 SED SSD.

The Area-51 dominated on Handbrake, transcoding a 4K video to 1080p in 1 minute and 46 seconds with the Ryzen chip and 1:53 with the Intel processor.

Software and Warranty on the Alienware Area-51

There are three Alienware-branded apps on the Area-51, but only one feels important. That's Alienware Command Center, with features to monitor system performance, launch games, and adjust AlienFX RGB backlighting. If you choose to use it to adjust audio settings, it will launch the separate Dolby Atmos app.

Alienware Customer Connect is designed for the sole purpose of sending out customer surveys. On $5,000 and higher systems, this shouldn't be there. Alienware Digital Delivery lets you download any software you purchased in a bundle with your desktop.

Dell sells the Alienware Area-51 with 1 year of Alienware Care, including on-location repair in 1 to 2 business days. That can be increased to up to 5 years for additional fees, and adding one year of accidental damage protection adds $109.

Alienware Area-51 Configurations

We tested a $5,759.99 configuration of the Alienware Area-51 with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, Nvidia RTX 5090, 64GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD, 1,500W power supply, tempered glass door, and a 360 mm liquid cooler for the CPU. That tower has since dropped to $5,359.99.

Our AMD review unit runs for $5,749.99 with an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, but otherwise identical specs.

The cheapest version of the system as of this writing is $3,749.99 with a Core Ultra 7 265, RTX 5080, 1TB SSD, 32GB of RAM, 850W PSU, and a 240 mm CPU cooler. The AMD version starts at $4,349.99 with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D and RTX 5080, though Alienware says more configurations will come down the line.

Depending on the model, SSD storage ranges between 1TB and 8TB.

In our review unit, Alienware also included a wired Dell keyboard and mouse. These are probably the ones your office gives out at work, and they're not good. If you're spending this much and don't have peripherals, you should invest in gaming-grade accessories, not these office supplies. You can choose not to have this e-waste packed in with your system when using the configurator before buying.

Bottom Line

The Alienware Area-51 is a significant improvement over the company’s recent gaming desktops. It uses standard parts (though a motherboard upgrade needs an adapter kit). It's also surprisingly quiet, and the top-end configuration we tested with an RTX 5090 tore through many games.

The difference between the top-end AMD and Intel versions was less than we expected, possibly coming down to cooling or simply Alienware's implementation of the chip. We expected a bit more of the AMD system, especially at 1080p, so my general guidance would be that unless you're attached to one platform or another, to get what you can get for the best price unless you're looking to update the CPU down the line.

If you're looking for something that’s at all compact, the Area-51 isn't for you. There, you should look into the latest configurations of the Alienware Aurora, or other mid-towers.

While some building purists will still find qualms with the system, the community of pre-built buyers will benefit from a big-box high-end option using standard parts and surprisingly quiet cooling. They just have to also manage to afford it.

Reports from multiple data acquisition experts indicate that PC shipments increased globally during Q1 2025 — most likely in response to the U.S. tariffs that have shaken financial markets across a wide array of industries.

Data shared by Canalys reflects that shipments for desktops, laptops, and workstations moved 62.7 million units so far this year, which is a total increase of 9.4%. We also found similar data from the International Data C orporation (IDC) website.

It's important to note that each source calculates percentage increases using different metrics, but the number of units reported is almost identical. According to IDC, PC shipments increased by just 4.9% for a total of 63.2 million total units shipped during Q1.

We must stress that these changes are most likely due to responses to early tariff announcements. In an effort to get ahead of impending market challenges, many mainstream manufacturers are moving as much stock as possible to avoid tariff price increases for themselves and their consumers. As such, this is not likely to be a long-term trend but rather a fluctuation in response to the current political climate.

Canalys shared additional information, breaking down the data by different PC types. More specifically, desktop and desktop workstation shipments increased 8% over last year to 13.3 million units. Notebooks and other mobile workstation shipments surged 10% to 49.4 million units. This data reflects trends in the overall market that will likely change significantly as the year progresses.

Another factor weighing in on the changing PC market is the impending Windows 10 End of Support date. Users have until October 14th, 2025, to upgrade their machine to Windows 11. For many users, this means updating their PC with compatible hardware or purchasing a new PC entirely.

We're not entirely sure how sales will shake out throughout 2025, but many factors will surely cause a stir. We'll keep an eye out for significant changes throughout each quarter, so check back regularly to see how both tariffs and Windows 10 End of Support are playing out for both corporate entities and end users.

Donald Trump’s new “liberation day” tariffs, announced in a splashy White House event on Wednesday, will have a huge impact on the price of virtually all consumer goods. But PCs, particularly those built by smaller, boutique vendors may be hit hardest of all, makers and resellers tell Tom’s Hardware.

Large OEMs such as Dell and HP may be able to limit their exposure by moving production to less-tariffed countries. U.S. brands such as Maingear, iBuyPower and Falcon Northwest assemble their products in America — using parts that come almost exclusively from Asia.

“Tariffs have a direct impact on our cost structure… which we have to pass down to our customers,” Wallace Santos, CEO of Maingear, told us a few minutes before Trump released his latest round of tariffs. “Some of our suppliers are stopping their production lines to move out of China, causing scarcity, which ultimately causes FOMO, which causes even more scarcity.

After yesterday's announcements, Santos said he expects prices for his PCs to go up 20 to 25% as a result of the tariffs.

On Wednesday, Trump announced his full suite of new tariffs, which include rates of 54% on China (+34% on top of the 20% already announced), 32% on Taiwan, 26% on South Korea and 46% on Vietnam. Those are all countries where a lot of PC components such as SSDs, RAM, PC cases and graphics cards are sourced. That 15% number could rise, in other words.

“Some of our GPU suppliers had to stop their Chinese lines to move to Taiwan or Vietnam, causing additional shortages,” Santos told us.

The tariffs had already worsened GPU shortages as manufacturers tried to move from China to less-taxed countries such as Vietnam. Now that those countries have tariffs of their own, there’s no place to go. These suppliers are less likely to move operations from China now that Vietnam and Taiwan also have huge tariffs applied to them.

"Unfortunately, we now anticipate around 20–25% due to the newly announced tariffs. We’re monitoring closely and will do our best to mitigate the impact," Santos said on Thursday.

Think America will start manufacturing all of its own DRAM and NAND Flash? Think again.

“Sadly the overwhelming majority of PC component manufacturing is not done in the US and never has been,” said Kelt Reeves, CEO of Falcon Northwest. “That means there's no US alternative supplier for most PC parts, so even for a US-based system integrator like us, it just means skyrocketing costs.”

“PCs are a low-margin business that can't just absorb such huge price increases. PCs were already getting more expensive with the GPU shortages and tariffs on Chinese manufacturing,” Reeves added, “and these new tariffs are going to make them much more expensive.”

Jon Bach, CEO of Puget Systems, another system integrator, published a blog post about tariffs last week, claiming that his company will try to absorb some of the costs before passing them along to consumers. Bach’s post was written before the latest lineup of tariffs, and still predicts price increases of 20 to 45 percent by June.

Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association was more pointed in his criticism of the Trump tariffs. In a statement, Shapiro wrote:

“President Trump’s sweeping global and reciprocal tariffs are massive tax hikes on Americans that will drive inflation, kill jobs on Main Street, and may cause a recession for the U.S. economy. These tariffs will raise consumer prices and will force our trade partners to retaliate.”

Shapiro is clearly no fan of tariffs, and pulled no punches in his comments: “Americans will become poorer because of these tariffs. This will not be a golden age – but a return to the global economic catastrophe of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the 1930s that will disproportionately hurt low income and hardworking Americans.”

Few people in the electronics industry aren’t pulling their hair out about tariffs. But B&H, a discount retailer known for its low prices and focus on A/V equipment, is taking a more spiritual approach to the tumult ahead.

“In general B&H’s overarching and guiding principle is to be patient and not worry,” Senior Business Development Executive Steve Honickman told us back in March. “B&H’s success is with GOD’s help…and our honesty, sharing knowledge and customer service! We can’t control pricing but we always will go above & beyond for our customers!”

Dell is giving some of its Alienware gaming PCs (or one, at least) additional flexibility by enabling compatibility with third-party motherboards. The system maker has provided a new AlienFX board cable conversion kit for its flagship Alienware Area-51 gaming desktop, which provides all the necessary equipment to swap out the Area-51's built-in motherboard with a third-party ATX or Micro-ATX motherboard. The kit can be bought at Dell's online store for $34.99.

The kit comes with a 4-pin power switch wiring cable, fan power bridge wiring cable, USB dongle extension, and a bag of three nuts. The power switch wiring cable is responsible for providing a connection to the Area-51's power button. The fan power bridge wiring cable provides compatibility with the Area 51's rear fan controller. The USB dongle extension converts the right-angled USB 3.0 front panel internal plug from 90 degrees to a traditional connector for improved compatibility.

Finally, the extra nuts provide compatibility for Micro-ATX motherboards. Dell also has an online video tutorial showing users how to swap the OEM board with a third-party counterpart.

While the kit provides all the necessary hardware to make third-party motherboards from Gigabyte, MSI, Asus, Biostar, and others work in the Area-51, there are a few caveats.. Dell does not provide official support for third-party motherboards paired to the Area-51, and does not guarantee compatibility.

The latter is most likely referring to internal port selection. For example, if you put a barebones $60 Micro-ATX motherboard in the Area-51, it is unlikely to have enough fan ports or connectors to support all of the Area-51's fans, lights, and connectors.

Another caveat is compatibility with the Area-51's internal power supply, which takes advantage of the still-emerging ATX12VO standard. Most motherboards on the market (even the latest ones) do not support ATX12VO, instead using the older ATX 24-pin standard. Third-party boards will need to support ATX12VO if users want to take advantage of the built-in PSU. The good news is that the Area-51's power supply can be switched out for a conventional model if needed.

Regardless, Dell's decision to support aftermarket motherboards is certainly welcome. There are a number of advantages to having aftermarket compatibility. Customers are not locked down to Dell's ecosystem if they need greater functionality from their system, such as more I/O, more M.2 slots, more DIMM slots (there are only two on the OEM motherboard at least right now), or a beefier power delivery system for overclocking.

And if the built-in OEM motherboard dies, users aren't limited to buying a replacement from Dell; they can replace the board with a third-party option, which might be a cheaper alternative if the system's warranty has expired.

The kit should also let those who really like the look and quality of the case they paid for to keep using it for several years after the existing hardware is past its useful gaming life. With the price of PC cases (and likely many other things) seemingly on the rise, anything that helps us hang onto existing hardware for longer is welcome at this point.

You might not be able to get your hands on a new Nvidia 50-series graphics card separately, but there are still a few floating about in prebuilt gaming PCs from various builders. Today's deal focuses on a top-spec build from Dell's Alienware lineup that features an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 at its heart. Now I do use the term "deal" here a little loosely, as yes, there is a deal whereby you get $400 off of the list price of this gaming rig, but, the cost of the whole PC is pretty expensive, and not a good deal if you're only after the GPU.

If you like this PC deal, check out Dell.com where the Alienware Area-51 (RTX 5080) gaming PC is listed for $4,649, a markdown of $400 on the list price of $5,049. This is a very beefy and competent gaming PC spec list with components that will be able to help push the most out of the latest game titles.

Dell has listened to customer feedback, done away with proprietary parts, and constructed a gaming PC that can be easily upgraded when more powerful components become available. The new case design features a glass side panel and a subdued yet modern design, and the hardware inside is up-to-date and powerful. The list of hardware inside this Alienware Area-51 includes the aforementioned Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU with 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM, Intel's 24-core Core Ultra 9 285K processor, 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and 4TB of SSD storage.

For cooling the CPU, the Alienware Area-51 uses a 360mm All-in-One liquid cooler, and to ensure the power-hungry GPU gets enough power and covers transient spikes, the PC comes with a 1500W Platinum-rated ATX12VO power supply.

Don't forget to look at our Dell coupon codes for March 2025 and see if you can save on today's deal or other products at Dell.

Although the Steam Hardware Survey is never a 100% accurate representation of all Steam users around the globe, it often shows the trends in PC systems, with the January 2025 Steam Hardware Survey results showing users migrating to Windows 11 and GPUs with 8GB of VRAM. However, the latest Steam Hardware Survey for February 2025 seems particularly skewed and features a massive jump in user numbers picking Simplified Chinese as their primary language. We've seen this kind of thing happen before, and it was caused by an internal error that made Steam query cybercafe PCs multiple times, but this might not be the case this time.

The latest survey showed a massive 20.88% increase in Chinese-speaking users, with the language claiming the top spot and putting English in second place at 23.79%. This means that 50.06% of Steam users surveyed prefer Chinese as the language on Steam, which is quite a surprising development. Not because Chinese has become the top language on the gaming platform, but because it happened so suddenly.

China is one of the most populous countries on Earth, so it makes sense to have many people prefer Chinese as their language on the PC. Steam has been available in China since 2021, so we would have expected this jump to happen nearer then, not today. Furthermore, gaming in China is heavily regulated by the government; that’s why users there have a localized version of the platform called Steam China.

However, it seems that the latest Steam Hardware Survey results combined the numbers from both the international and China-only Steam clients. This is the most plausible explanation for this sudden jump in Chinese speakers on the platform, especially as Taiwan and Hong Kong use Traditional Chinese, which only accounts for 1.1% of Steam users.

Massive swings in OS version usage, RAM quotas

Likely because of the sudden influx of Chinese users, we also see some massive swings in other hardware trends. For one, Windows 10 gained a massive 10.47% jump in user numbers despite Windows 11 slowly becoming more popular in the rest of the world as the former is nearing its end-of-life date. Another big change that we noticed is the massive increase in systems with 32GB of RAM, with 46.94% of users packing larger memory. Just last month, 45.07% of surveyed systems only had 16GB of RAM, so this change is also likely brought about by the sudden influx of new systems from China (unless millions of people just had the sudden urge to upgrade the RAM on their systems).

Aside from that, we also saw a large shift in primary display resolutions, with 1440p displays getting a bump of 9.92%, with 29.98% of surveyed users sporting this resolution. 1080p Full HD screens are still the most popular, at 52.34%, but it seems that more gamers are gravitating towards higher resolutions. This is likely driven by the increase in popularity of GPUs with 8GB and 12GB of VRAM, with both increasing by 7.41% and 4.88%, respectively.

If these massive changes were brought about by users from China, then it seems that gamers from that country are quite serious about their hardware. The popularity of 32GB of RAM, 8 to 12GB of VRAM, and 1440p resolution suggests that this is the sweet spot for most gamers when it comes to their PC specs.

Alternatively, this fluke could have been caused by erroneous reporting data again, similar to what happened to the survey way back in 2018 (linked in the intro). Unfortunately, there's no way for us to track the accuracy of this report, especially as Valve is mum about its survey methodology and doesn't reveal how it got all this data.

Today's deal is on this 2024 model of MSI's Codex Z2 prebuilt gaming PC. This PC has been reduced in price by $300, making it an affordable budget option for getting into PC gaming or upgrading from a much older machine. The major component part used in the build is the current generation Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti graphics card, although, it's only just over a week until the first 50-series Nvidia graphics cards drop which will then relegate it to last-gen status. But they are going to be the two high-end cards first (RTX 5090 & RTX 5080) and they won't be cheap.

Head to Best Buy to find this deal on the MSI Codex Z2 for just $899. You're saving $300 on the MSRP price of $1199, and at $899 the MSI Codex Z2 is a great option for a budget gaming PC with this hardware configuration.

The case of the Codex Z2 is an airflow case with mesh panels to let the cool air inside, with a tempered glass side panel for viewing the internals. Inside the case is an AMD Ryzen 5 8400F processor, Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 8GB graphics card, 16GB of DDR5 5200MHz RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD. This 2024 model PC also comes with WiFi 7 for easy internet connectivity. This hardware config will easily run any modern game at 1080p on high settings -- even 1440p for some games, and with the RTX 4060 Ti you can make use of Nvidia's DLSS technology to improve framerates on higher resolution monitors.

With a 650W power supply on board, you can always choose to upgrade some of the components later if the requirements of newer games demand it.

Don't forget to look at our Best Buy coupon codes for January 2025 and see if you can save on today's deal or other products at Best Buy.

Asus has released an updated ROG NUC for 2025 featuring the latest GPU and CPU hardware for Nvidia and Intel. The new variant features an Intel Core Ultra 9 Arrow Lake-HX series CPU and an RTX 5080 laptop GPU in a form factor smaller than a PlayStation 5.

As the name suggests, the new ROG NUC comes in a portable/compact form factor of 282.4mm tall, 187.7mm deep, and 56.5mm thick. Compared to other consoles, such as the PlayStation 5, the new ROG NUC is 71.3% smaller volume-wise. The NUC is cooled with an integrated triple-fan design and twin vapor chamber coolers that purportedly keep the device silent. One of the fans is dedicated entirely to the CPU and can cool up to 135 watts alone. The chassis features integrated vents on both sides that exhaust air out the rear of the case.

The chassis' ventilation system has been integrated into its aesthetic. The left ROG logo features a perforated design that allows the internal fans to intake cool air. The right side features an RGB-illuminated ROG logo with a cutout at the bottom, enabling the CPU fan to intake air.

We're just past Christmas and heading into the New Year, which means more deals. Newegg's "After Christmas Sale" features one of the most attractive deals we found - a powerful gaming PC, the ABS Kaze Ruby, which includes some heavyweight components that are capable of running the latest and greatest triple-A titles on very high settings or running your favorite esports games with ridiculously high frame rates.

Pick up the ABS Kaze Ruby gaming PC - now only $1,899 at Newegg. The original MSRP price of this system is $2,399, so you're saving a hefty $500 off the price of a new gaming PC. This system currently contains one of the most powerful graphics cards available - the Nvidia RTX 4080 Super, and this component alone retails for over $1,000. New GPUs are coming out early next year, but we won't be seeing any new prebuilt systems or, for that matter, pricing on these new systems until then, and no doubt they will come with a premium price tag attached.

Inside the ABS Kaze Ruby's mesh airflow chassis is the aforementioned Nvidia RTX 4080 Super GPU, an 8-core 16-thread AMD Ryzen 7 7700X CPU, MSI B650-VC V2 motherboard, 32GB of DDR5 6000 MHz RAM, a 1TB SSD, Thermaltake UX200 air cooler, and a gold-rated 1000W power supply to comfortably power all the components.

The ABS Kaze Ruby gaming PC comes prebuilt and removes any fuss or complication when constructing or building your own PC. An operating system is included, and should anything go wrong, the warranty for the PC is all under one roof. This is ideal for PC users who aren't comfortable building their own PCs or if you're looking to gift a gaming PC.

Don't forget to look at our Newegg coupon codes for December 2024 and see if you can save on today's deal or other products at Newegg.

Not all gaming desktops are created equal. While mainstream brands attract with lower prices, specialty aftermarket companies like Corsair deliver higher quality. The Vengeance i7600, reviewed here at $2,099.99, incorporates many of Corsair's own components, giving it a custom-built, aftermarket feel. The real question is whether it's worth the premium compared to a mainstream tower, which can be significantly cheaper.

Design of the Corsair Vengeance i7600

The Vengeance i7600 uses Corsair's 3500X case. Its tempered glass panels on the front and left sides create an modern aquarium aesthetic, showcasing the RGB-lit interior. The case puts off a high-end, premium vibe that is consistent with aftermarket builds.

Although the six 120mm Corsair RS120 fans support ARGB lighting, this tower lacks an iCUE controller, so the included Corsair iCUE app can’t be used to control them. I installed the MSI Mystic Light app (compatible with the MSI motherboard in our unit) to gain lighting control.

The case is built well, featuring sturdy metal panels. Rubber feet on the bottom prevent it from sliding around. Measuring 9.45 x 19.92 x 18.11 inches, it’s quite wide for a mid-tower. While more compact designs exist, they likely won’t look as flashy as this tower.

Corsair Vengeance i7600 Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the Corsair Vengeance i7600

Port selection starts on the top of the tower with a 3.5 mm audio jack, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type-C port, and two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports. There are no surprises here.

At the rear, the MSI PRO Z890P WIFI ATX motherboard features a variety of modern ports, including 5 Gbps Ethernet, a USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 port, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (one Type-A and one Type-C), and two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports. It also features PS/2 and USB 2.0 legacy ports, along with 3.5 mm audio connectors. Additionally, the jacks for the wireless antennas support Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 via the built-in Intel BE200 card.

Although the built-in DisplayPort and HDMI ports are operational on our model since its Core Ultra 7 265K processor has an integrated GPU, Corsair’s site states this tower comes with the graphics-less KF chip, which would render the motherboard’s monitor outputs nonfunctional. The GeForce RTX 4070 Super features the expected one HDMI and three DisplayPort outputs.

Removing the Vengeance’s side doors is easy; simply pull on the thumb perch at the upper rear corner of each door – no thumbscrews required. The doors hinge at the bottom, ensuring they stay attached even when loosened.

The main compartment offers ample working space. While the cabling is fairly tidy, using a single power connection for the graphics card would have made it neater.

The MSI ATX motherboard offers three PCIe x16 slots, one PCIe x1 slot, and four M.2 drive slots (one PCIe 5.0 and three PCIe 4.0). The single storage drive installed below the CPU is a 1TB Corsair MP600 Core XT. The motherboard also features four DIMM slots, two of which are populated with 16GB Corsair Vengeance RGB modules running at DDR5-6400. Up to 256GB of RAM is supported (using four 64GB DIMMs).

The Corsair Nautilus 240RS CPU cooler features a 240 mm radiator and RGB lighting in its fans and waterblock. The Asus-brand GeForce RTX 4070 Super looks small; it has two cooling fans but no RGB lighting.

Behind the other side door, you can mount two 2.5-inch drives behind the motherboard. The Corsair RM750e modular power supply is also visible. The cables in this side are bundled and zip-tied to prevent them from coming loose. Corsair includes the power supply’s unused cables in the shipping box.

Note that Corsair doesn’t specify the brands of the motherboard, SSD, RAM, PSU, or graphics card in the Vengeance i7600 specifications. So not all models may have the same parts as the ones in our unit, and specific parts are likely to change over time due to availability of stock.

To prevent dust buildup, a pull-out dust filter slides under the tower, and another dust filter magnetically attaches behind the right door. For upgrades, the case supports 360mm liquid-cooling radiators along the side or top, as well as multiple mounting points for 120mm or 140mm fans. It also accommodates up to two 3.5-inch drives.

Gaming and Graphics on the Corsair Vengeance i7600

We are testing the Vengeance i7600 with an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super graphics card, and 32GB of DDR5-6400 dual-channel RAM. This enthusiast configuration should be able to handle any modern game with ease.

Playing F1 24, I observed between 65 and 75 frames per second (fps) at a 3840 x 2160 resolution with Ultra High settings, 16X antistrophic filtering, and Nvidia DLSS enabled. The game ran smoothly; I didn’t notice any slowdowns.

Our comparison systems are the Acer Predator Orion 5000 (Core i7-14700F, RTX 4070 Super, $1,499.99 as tested), the Alienware Aurora R16 (Core i7-14700F, RTX 4070, $1,999.99), and the iBuyPower Y60 (AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, RTX 4060 Ti, $1,499.99). The Acer will be the closest competitor given it shares the same GPU as our Vengeance i7600, while the Alienware uses the RTX 4070 non-Super and the iBuyPower the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti.

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, using the game’s Highest detail preset, the Vengeance i7600 claimed the top spot at the CPU-limited 1080p resolution, achieving 193 fps compared to the Acer’s 179 fps. At the 4K resolution, both systems were tied with 63 fps. The Alienware finished in third place while the iBuyPower came in last, which we expected due to their less powerful graphics cards.

In Cyberpunk 2077, at the game’s Ray Tracing Ultra preset, the Vengeance i7600 slightly underperformed compared to the Acer, achieving 69 fps versus the Acer’s 71 fps at 1080p. Both systems tied with 20 fps at the 4K resolution. The Alienware, with 60 fps at 1080p, and Acer, with 46 fps at 1080p, again finished in third and fourth place, respectively.

In Far Cry 6, at the game’s Ultra preset, the Vengeance i7600 and Acer systems were closely matched; the Vengeance i7600 produced 124 fps at 1080p and 72 fps at 4K while the Acer managed 119 fps at 1080p and 73 fps at 4K. Meanwhile, the Alienware produced 63 fps at 4K and the iBuyPower produced 47 fps at 4K.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, using the game’s Medium preset, the Vengeance i7600 underperformed at 1080p, producing 107 fps compared to the Acer’s 128 fps. The systems were evenly matched at 4K, with 38 fps for the Vengeance i7600 and 39 fps for the Acer. The Alienware and iBuyPower systems continued to place third and fourth, respectively.

Last, in Borderlands 3, at the game’s Badass preset, the Vengeance i7600 narrowly outperformed the Acer, with 176 fps at 1080p and 67 fps at 4K versus the Acer’s 174 fps at 1080p and 64 fps at 4K.

Overall, the GeForce RTX 4070 Super is better suited for 1080p than 4K gaming, though it’s certainly capable of the latter with reduced settings. The other takeaway is that despite using a new Core Ultra 7 265K, the Vengeance i7600 typically didn’t perform much better and sometimes performed worse than the Acer Predator Orion 5000, which used the older Core i7-14700F. This is not surprising of course, as we found gaming performance when reviewing the Core Ultra 9 285K to be not as good as the prior generation. Software optimization over time will likely result in at least some performance improvements.

To evaluate the performance of gaming desktops, we conduct a stress test using the Metro Exodus benchmark at RTX settings, running it 15 times in succession to simulate half an hour of gaming. The Vengeance i7600 averaged 132.77 fps across all tests, with minimal variance indicating stable thermal performance. The Core Ultra 7 265K maintained an average clock speed of 4.98 GHz and a temperature of 45 degrees C on its P-cores, and 3.3 GHz and 40 C on its E-cores. Meanwhile, the GeForce RTX 4070 Super had an average clock of 2.6 GHz and temperature of 62 C. The system’s fans were quiet throughout; I was able to game next to this tower with open-design headphones.

Productivity Performance on the Corsair Vengeance i7600

Our Vengeance i7600 features a Core Ultra 7 265K processor, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. It’s very well-equipped for any manner of demanding use, including content creation. The RAM and storage can be upgraded to make it even more formidable.

The Vengeance i7600 dominated the Geekbench 6 synthetic CPU benchmark, scoring 3,230 points in single-core and 21,224 points in multi-core. The Acer followed in a distant second, with 2,643 points in single-core and 16,534 points in multi-core. The Alienware performed similarly to the Acer, while the iBuyPower, equipped with a Ryzen 7 7700X, finished last in the multi-core test, but did well on the single-core test.

In our Handbrake test, which transcodes a 4K video to 1080p, the Vengeance i7600 again took first place, completing the test in 1 minute and 58 seconds. The Acer trailed at 2 minutes and 40 seconds, while the Alienware (3 minutes and 52 seconds) and iBuyPower (3 minutes and 33 seconds) were well behind.

We also ran our 25 GB file transfer test on the primary storage drive. The Corsair wasn’t quite as quick as the Acer, with an average transfer rate of 1,513.97 MBps compared to the Acer’s, 1,585.18 MBps. The iBuyPower finished third, with 1,327.99 MBps, while the Alienware landed last, with 1,286.01 MBps.

Software and Warranty

Corsair includes minimal software on the Vengeance i7600. The Corsair iCUE app shows component temperatures and lets you control any iCUE devices. However, as noted earlier, the Vengeance 3500X case included with the desktop doesn’t have an iCUE controller, so neither the ARGB fans nor the CPU cooler show up as compatible devices. The other included app is Corsair Diagnostics for troubleshooting.

Corsair backs the Vengeance i7600 with a two-year warranty, a nice improvement over the one-year industry standard.

Corsair Vengeance i7600 Configurations

We reviewed the Vengeance i7600 with a Core Ultra 7 265K processor, a GeForce RTX 4070 Super graphics card, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. No peripherals were included. It was discounted to $2,099.99 at the time of this review.

Corsair offers a $2,499.99 model with an RTX 4070 Ti Super, with all the other components matching our test configuration. Models with the Core Ultra 9 285K start at $3,199.99 and include an RTX 4080 Super and a 2TB SSD. The top-tier configuration, priced at $4,199.99, upgrades to a GeForce RTX 4090 and 64GB of RAM.

The Vengeance i7600 is pricey compared to more mainstream offerings. For instance, the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8 was $1,499.99 with an RTX 4070 Super, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD, and included a 1TB hard drive, albeit using an older Core i7-14700F. I also saw the Alienware Aurora R16 for $1,999 with the same basic loadout as our Vengeance i7600, though it too used an older CPU, specifically a Core i7-14700KF.

The iBuyPower Y60 was also less expensive, with a $1,699 model including a Core i9-14900KF, an RTX 4070 Super, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD.

Granted, the Vengeance i7600’s liquid cooling, modular power supply, and two-year warranty should be factored into justifying its premium.

Bottom Line

Corsair's Vengeance i7600 sets the standard for a well-built gaming desktop. It incorporates many of Corsair's own high-quality components, including the excellent Vengeance 3500X case. The system is visually striking and operates quietly, thanks to the Corsair fans and liquid CPU cooling.

Our testing revealed that the Core Ultra 7 265K processor and GeForce RTX 4070 Super graphics card are well-matched, though this setup isn’t ideal for 4K gaming. Corsair offers higher-end configurations for that, including the Core Ultra 9 285K and the GeForce RTX 4090.

Although the Vengeance i7600 is pricier than mainstream options like the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gen 8, its aftermarket components, liquid cooling, and standard two-year warranty make the premium worthwhile. For an enthusiast-class gaming desktop that’s sure to impress, the Vengeance i7600 is an excellent option.