S
can’s3XSVengeanceRTXTiis expensiveand
imposing,whichis nosurpriseconsideringthe
hardwareinside.The3XSis builtaroundAMD’s
flagshipRyzen9 3900X.It’sa formidablechipbasedon
AMD’sZen2 microarchitecture,andbuiltona 7nm
manufacturingprocess.It has 12 cores(and 24 threadsvia
SMT),anda mighty64MBofL3cache.
It ordinarilyrunsat3.8GHz,butScanhasoverclockedthe
chipacrossallcoresto4.3GHz.That’sbelowthe4.6GHz
boostachievedonsomecores,butit’sbetterthantheCPU’s
all-coreboostpeakofaround4.1GHz.AMD’snewchip
competeswithIntel’stopchips,suchasthe8-corei9-9900K.
ThatCPUlastappearedinthe
£3,300OverclockersUKRadiance
Pro(seeIssue191,p38),which
overclockedthatCPUto5GHz.
Scanhaslockedthe3900Xinside
anAsusROGStrixX570-FGaming
motherboard.TheinclusionofAMD’s
newestX570chipsetmeansyou
getPCI-E4 support,andtheboard
is stockedwithlargeheatsinks,RGB
LEDs,plentyofUSBconnections
andspareSATAandM.2connectors.
There’sSLIsupportandenough
bandwidthtoadda secondGPUtoo.
OntheI/Obackplate,you’llfind
fiveUSB3.1Gen1 ports,a Type-Cport
anda BIOSflashbackbutton.Overall,
theboardisn’tmissingmuch– there
arenoon-boardbuttonsorWi-Fi,
butthat’sit. Thehigh-endhardware
continueselsewhere.There’snohard
disk– instead,Scanhasmadefulluse
oftheX570chipset’sPCI-E4 support
bydeployinga 2TBCorsairMP600(see
p26forourreviewofthe1TBversion).
Meanwhile,theCPUis pairedwith
32GBofmemoryclockedto3200MHz,
andtheCorsairpowersupplyserves
up1,000Wofpower– idealfor
addinga secondGPU,a solid 80 Plus
Goldratingandmodulardesign.SCAN3XS VENGEANCE
RTX TI/£3,199incVAT
SUPPLIER scan.co.ukGAMING PC
It’s a killer spec for heavily multi-threaded content creation
work, but Scan’s Ryzen-based rig is also able to handle high-
end gaming. An EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti card pairs the
usual 4,352 stream processors and 11GB of memory with
Nvidia’s 1545MHz boost clock. It’s Nvidia’s top-spec gaming
GPU, and it should make this machine very fast in games.
The hardware is packed inside a vast Corsair Crystal 680X
RGB case. Its width of 344mm makes it nearly 150mm wider
than most enclosures. It looks superb, with tempered glass
side, front and roof panels, and there are synchronised RGB
LEDs on the fans, memory, graphics card and CPU cooler.
The Corsair’s width enables a dual-chamber design.
The PSU is installed vertically behind the motherboard
tray, and the extra space means the Corsair has
tool-free cages for three 3.5in drives and four 2.5in
drives. Scan has kept the whole interior neat, and
the extra space means plenty of room to work.
Plus, as usual, you get Scan’s excellent warranty,
which includes a full three years of parts and labour
coverage, complete with a year of on-site service.Performance
The Ryzen 9 3900X is tremendous. In our heavily multi-
threaded Handbrake video-encoding test, its score of
813,573 was more than 200,000 points beyond the
Core i9-9900K in the aforementioned Overclockers
PC, and the Scan’s overall system score of 293,352 is
nearly 60,000 points beyond the same machine.
AMD has a clear advantage over Intel in multi-threaded
apps, so the Scan will be far better with work applications
and creative software. It’s just as quick as Intel in single-
threaded tasks and gaming. Impressively, the overclocked
Scan also beat the Intel-based Overclockers machine in ourREVIEWS / PC SYSTEMS
SPEC
CPU
3.8GHz AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
overclocked to 4.3GHz
Motherboard
Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming
Memory
32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro
3200MHz DDR4
Graphics
EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
Storage
2TB Corsair MP600 M.2 SSD
Case
Corsair Crystal 680X RGB
Cooling
CPU: Corsair Hydro H100i RGB Platinum
with 2 x 120mm fans; GPU: 2 x 90mm
fans; front: 3 x 120mm fans; rear: 1 x
120mm fan
PSU
Corsair RM1000x
Ports
Front: 2 x USB 3.1, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C, 2 x
audio; rear: 4 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 2 x USB 3.1
Gen 2, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, 1 x
Gigabit Ethernet, 1 x optical S/PDIF,
5 x audio
Operating system
Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Warranty
Three years parts and labour. First year
on site, then return to basecc
uuss
tommPP
CCA
P
PROVED