APR 2022MAXIMU MPC 71
ALL IN ALL, this was a fun, if somewhat
challenging build. Building from spare parts
is a trial and error process that’s a world
away from the relative ease of using retail
components. When building my own PCs, I
tend to agonize over each individual part of
my build for weeks, put together my parts list
on PC Part Picker [https://pcpartpicker.com]
to make sure they are all compatible, and
then have all of the boxes in one place so that
accessories and manuals are immediately
to hand. With a Frankenstein build, it’s much
more of a case of trial and error—just make
do with what you have, plug it all together as
best you can, and hope for the best!
That said, this is certainly a machine that I
would give to someone who wanted to game
at 1080p or probably more likely use myself
as a gaming PC in my living room. I’ve really
gotten into couch PC gaming over the last
couple of years, and this machine loaded
with games and running in Steam Big Picture
mode would be an absolute dream. Sadly,
it won’t run games in 4K, but it’d be perfect
for multiplayer games and VR titles—a Beat
Saber party using this PC would go down a
storm, for example.
In terms of learnings from the build, I
would have really liked to have added more
hard drives, because there were so many
spare SATA SSDs and 3.5-inch hard drives in
storage that I could use. I imagine that’s the
case for many readers too—if you’re going
to have any spare components in a drawer
somewhere, I suspect it’s hard drives.
I could have added a second M2 drive onto
the motherboard in this build, but I’d have
needed to order new mounting brackets for
the case in order to fit any SATA drives. With
another SSD or 3.5-inch drive, I could have
stored more games, used the computer as a
server, or put on a load of media on it if I was
repurposing it as a media center PC.
I also need to be totally honest with myself
about one aspect of the build, and that’s
the fact that few people are going to have a
graphics card lying around like we did. Given
their coveted nature and astronomical value
over the last couple of years, you’d either
have sold it or, you know, used it yourself.That said, the RTX 2000-series still
shouldn’t be overlooked in 2022. Sure, the
RTX 3050 (read our review on page 74) is
cheaper at retail if you can find it, but it’s not
up to the performance of the RTX 2070, which
is still more than capable of 1080p gaming
at high settings (see benchmarks). It’s also
a good candidate as a second machine
for Twitch streamers, as it boasts H.265
hardware encoding.
This is the first PC I’ve built in a year, and
while there were some frustrating moments,
it was a reminder of just how fun these builds
(and my job!) can be. I’ll see you soon for the
next one!THE CONCLUSION
1
The RGB lighting on the CPU
cooler, RAM, and front case
fans is definite overkill but we had
to work with what we could find.(^2)
The premium black and red
braided cables were a useful
find for this build and they kept
everything nice and tidy.
3
The Gigabyte RTX 2070 card
looked slightly lop-sided in
PCIe slot 1, which is just the nature
of incorporating used parts.
4
The Corsair case is compact but
also stylish and functional, with
plenty of room to work inside. That
also means it has excellent airflow.
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3
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BENCHMARKS COMPARISON
ZERO-
POINT
3DMark: Fire Strike (Index) 19,267 21,145 (10%)
CineBench R15
Multi-Thread (Index) 2,034 3,014 (48%)
CrystalDisk Q32T1
Sequential Read (MB/s) 3,103 4,931 (59%)
CrystalDisk Q32T1
Sequential Write (MB/s) 1,053 4,210 (300%)
Total War: Warhammer II (fps) 77 98.4 (28%)
Rise of the Tomb Raider (fps) 122 118.9 (-3%)
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon:
Wildlands (fps)^6867 (-2%)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Our zero-point consists of an Intel Core i9-9900K, 16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR4-3600, an Nvidia GeForce
GTX 1080 FE, and a 240GB Corsair Force MP510 SSD. All game tests are performed at 1080p at the highest graphical profile.