CASE
Corsair iCUE 5000X RGB
£170 inc VAT
scan.co.uk
Our premium case Labs this month featured
several exciting new cases that wowed us with
features and cooling. However, for this build,
we wanted a little more visual pizzazz mixed
with excellent water-cooling credentials and
none really fitted the bill. However, one of the
runners-up – Corsair’s 5000D airflow, has a
sibling that’s perfect for the job.
The iCUE 5000X RGB uses the same
chassis, but with all-around glass, RGB fans,
and comes in a gorgeous white and grey
finish. It doesn’t have the same large vented
exterior, with the front and roof instead
sheathed in tempered glass, but these areas
are still designed to allow air to pass through.
There are plenty of other places to put fans
and radiators, though, including the side panel,
so it remains a great case to water-cool and
is much better-looking than the cheaper
model too.
Alternatives
The storage options in our chosen case
are rather limited, plus you might prefer
something a little more understated. In
which case, this month’s case Labs test
winner is a great choice. Fractal Design’s
Meshify 2 is superb, leaving you with plenty
of change from £150 but still providing
great out-of-the-box cooling and oodles
of water-cooling potential.
COOLING
Corsair Hydro X components
£100 inc VAT
scan.co.uk
As the RTX 3080 has been out for a few
months, waterblock manufacturers have had
ample time to measure up and create their
wares and there’s a number of waterblocks
available. We’ve gone for Corsair’s Hydro
X XG7 RGB, which is specifically made
for the RTX 3080 Founders Edition, but it
offers models for plenty of partner card
examples too.
We’ve also gone for Corsair’s XC7 CPU
waterblock to cool our Ryzen 9 5900X, as
well as a pair of its XR5 360mm radiators
and ML120 Pro RGB fans to keep our PC
cool and quiet. We’re also using 12/10mm
flexible tubing, cut to length with angled
Corsair chrome fittings to route it around the
PC. Finally, we’re using Corsair’s XD5 RGB
reservoir, which includes a D5 pump. We’ll
also be using red clear coolant. The total for
the entire cooling system is £660.PSU
Corsair RM850i
£168 inc VAT
novatech.co.uk
While the RTX 3080 is a monster GPU, it has
some fairly hefty power requirements. We
haven’t seen power draw above 500W from
any of our in-house RTX 3080 PCs, but it’s
come close. As a result, you’ll want to factor
in at least another 50 per cent on top of that- more if possible, so a minimum of 750W.
We’ve opted for an 850W PSU in the form of
Corsair’s RM850i. It has fully modular cables,
which we’ve replaced with Corsair’s custom
white cable set, and with 850W of power, it
should be more than enough for our system.
STORAGE
Corsair 2TB MP600
£159 inc VAT
overclockers.co.uk
We’re not quite at the point of replacing our
hard disks with SSDs, as 8TB of the former
still costs a lot less than the latter. However,
with many of us using the cloud or a NAS
enclosure to house mass data, getting a single
big M.2 SSD is still a great way to have nearly
all you need on a single drive. It saves cables
and with the Corsair iCUE 5000X RGB case,
removing the hard disk cage provides a handy
cable stowage area under the PSU cover too.
We’ve gone for Corsair’s 2TB MP600 SSD and
removed its heatsink, so it can sit under the
included motherboard M.2 heatsink.TOTAL
2,943 INC VAT
COOLING
orsair HydroXcompo
PSU