11 CLEAN UP
BEFORE WE SEAL everything up, we want to try and tidy the rig
where possible. Using the main channel running along the back
of the case, we feed our case cables through this and keep them
in place using the pre-installed Velcro straps. We used the
spare 2.5-inch SSD bracket to tie some more cables together
in a bunch to tidy things up. It’s always handy to keep things
organized at the end. Put it this way, you certainly don’t want to
be cable tying at the start and then have to change your cable
routes. We’ve been there, done that, and got the T-shirt.12 REASSEMBLE
SO WE’VE MADE IT to the end, at least in terms of the hardware.
Now, we can piece things back together and admire the case in
all its glory. The glass panels are easy to replace—to pop them
back on, place them into the rubber slots and tighten them with
the single thumbscrew at the top. The back is secured with two
thrush screws and, finally, we install the front of this machine.
Layer the mesh grill under the main grill and pop them back
into place. With the rig all fixed, let’s turn to the software.SO, WHAT DID $600 GET US?
WE’VE MADE IT TO the finish line of this
budget-end rig. Right from the offset, we
knew this was going to be a good-looking
machine, even though we’d set ourselves
a strict price bracket within which to
work. Much of that is down to the NZXT
H510 Flow case that houses our machine.
With its sharp lines and better airflow
from a revised front panel, it’s great value
for money and a big improvement from
the previous H510 case. For under $100,
it’s a great case that brings the looks of
your build bang up to date.
Our chip is a promising component—a
mid-range Intel Core i5 CPU for under
$150 is still a good and solid brain with
plenty of potential performance, despite
dating back to the Comet Lake lineup.
Unfortunately, our SSD isn’t the strongest
and if we could do this build over again,
we’d try to grab a faster M.2 drive to boost
those read and write times. The 480GB
capacity should be enough, but we know
that can disappear in no time, and slotting
a 1TB drive in here would have been ideal.
With no dedicated GPU to help us out,
we weren’t expecting miracles. You cansee from the benchmarks that these
scores aren’t especially comforting. Of
course, on our gaming benchmarks,
we’re running at 1080p with max settings.
In reality, you are more likely to be playing
on low to medium settings to get a higher
and playable frame rate, but it’s alwaysgood to see what systems will push out
when they’re stretched.
What we can say is that, compared
with our $400 build, spending an extra
$200 is worth it for the extra gaming
performance. Moving from the i3-10100
to the i5-10400 gave us two more coresBENCHMARKS
$400
BUILD$600
BUILD
CineBench R15 Multi (Index) 904 1,232 (36%)CrystalDisk QD32
Sequential Read (MB/s)^493402 (-18%)CrystalDisk QD32
Sequential Write (MB/s)^312 4,911 (-5%)Rise of the Tomb Raider (fps) 6 11 (83%)Total War: Warhammer II (fps) 6 13 (117%)3DMark: Fire Strike
Extreme (Index) 1,233 1,817 (47%)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Our zero-point conists of an Intel Core i3-10100, 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengence LPX DDR4 @3000 and a 240GB
Kingston A400 2.5” SSD. All game tests are performed at 1080p at the highest graphical profile.$600 budget build
26 MAXIMU MPC MAR 2022