maximumpc.com OCT 2019 MAXIMUMPC 71
WE’RE PRETTY PLEASED with the outcome
of this build. It might not be as optimized
for gaming as some of our “Build It” PCs—
though it should still handle most games at
1440p—but it smashed our benchmark zero-
points in other areas. The Gen4 M.2 drive is
pulling its weight and then some, getting
close to a dizzying 5GB/s of read speeds and
over 4GB/s of writes. Meanwhile, the Ryzen
7 3700X and Radeon RX 5700 both did great,
performing well in Cinebench and 3DMark.
W e r e p r i c e n o o b j e c t , o r i f w e w e r e f o c u s i n g
on extremely high-end performance, we’d
have spruced up some parts of the build.
This system could comfortably support a
high-end GPU, such as a Radeon VII or an
RTX 2080 Ti, without starting to struggle,
although for extreme 8K video editing, it may
be worth upgrading to 64GB of RAM, too. As
a mid-level workstation, though, this rig is
easily capable of doing the work. The 3700X
is a quality CPU; we did contemplate using
a Ryzen 9 3900X, but the price increase
against performance didn’t seem worth it.
The Gigabyte X570 motherboard is a great,
dependable board for supporting a flexible
build, and likely won’t need upgrading for
a long time. The Eclipse P600S also leaves
plenty of room for expansion, with space
for a larger GPU or a soundcard. There’s
also room for an all-in-one cooler; a worthy
extra if you’re looking to overclock. The
Wraith Prism is actually a fantastic cooler,
considering it comes with the 3700X, and it
can comfortably handle the CPU’s automatic
overclocking functions without overheating.
Ryzen 3000 processors have some issues
with manual overclocking, but if you’ve got
the expertise to make it work, a more robust
cooling solution may be required.
These builds often serve as more of a
guideline than a hardline tutorial, so we
expect you to swap out components here
and there. One part we recommend, though,
is the Fractal Design Ion+ PSU. Its modular
design and clean appearance make it a veryattractive choice of power supply. It also
comes in 660W, 760W, and 860W models,
should your system need a little extra juice.
It’s hard not to like this build. The setup
was straightforward and the end result is
a pleasingly simplistic system that runs
well and looks good; the RGB lighting is
restrained, but flashy enough to impress.
The only other thing we’d consider adding is
a hard drive, because our MP600 only packs
1TB of storage. It might sound a lot, but for
storing large video files, slapping in a roomy
HDD might become a necessity.A QUALITY RIG WITH ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
(^1)
While it might only be
the stock cooler for the
3700X, the Wraith Prism is
actually very effective when
it comes to keeping your
processor cool. It looks
pretty good, too, and doesn’t
impinge on the DIMM slots,
even with bulkier RAM.
2
The RX 5700 is a great
mid-range GPU, and
there’s always room for
upgrading in this build. We’re
still waiting on a high-end
card from AMD, though....
3
The PSU shroud has
plenty of space to
conceal any loose cables,
but thanks to the modular
design of the Ion+ 560P, there
shouldn’t be too much of that
nonsense to deal with.
1
2
3
BENCHMARKS
ZERO-
POINT
Cinebench R15 Multi (Index) 959 2,096 (119%)
CrystalDisk QD32 Sequential
Read (MB/s) 3,442 4,998 (45%)
CrystalDisk QD32 Sequential
Write (MB/s) 1,706 4,286 (151%)
Rise of the Tomb Raider (fps) 95 84 (-12%)
Total War: Warhammer II (fps) 55 55 (0%)
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon
Wildlands (fps)^48 51 (6%)
3DMark: Fire Strike (Index) 9,128 20,755 (127%)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Our zero-point consists of an Intel Core i5-8400, 16GB (2x 8GB) of Corsair Vengeance LPX @ 2,666MT/s, an MSI GeForce GTX
1080 Armor, and a 500GB Samsung 960 Evo M.2 PCIe SSD. All tests were performed at 1440p at the highest graphical profile.