22 OCTOBER 2019|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE 380
THEINFERNOR1isn’t just another mid-tower
gaming PC. Thanks to our AMD Ryzen 3000
review kit being delayed, it gives us our first
look at one of the new third-generation
CPUs –the Ryzen 53600X –aswell as the
GeForce RTX2060 Super graphics card, a
souped-up version of Nvidia’s excellent RTX
2060 (Shopper375). It’s almost as up to date
aPCasit’s possible to get –but even so,it’s
not all that expensive.
That’s because,atleast ostensibly,these
two keycomponents are mid-range parts. The
Ryzen 53600X, forinstance,isareplacement
forthe sub-£200 Ryzen 52600X (Shopper
367)from last year.It’s still ahexa-core,
12-thread processor and uses the same AM4
socket, but clock speeds have risen to a
3.8GHz base speed and a4.4GHz boost speed.
READYTOMINGLE
The result is noticeably improved multicore
strength and, even more tantalisingly,vastly
superior single-core speed, the latter being
an area in which previous Ryzen chips, across
the entire range,havealways struggled with
compared to Intel chips.
The Inferno R1 helps
out the silicon with
16GB of DDR4 RAM,
forming the brain of a
system that scored 186
in our 4K benchmark’s
image test, 255 in the
video test, 302 in the
multitasking test and
267 overall.
These are all great
scores, but particular
attention must be paid
to the image test, which
focuses on single-core
performance.Here,the
Inferno R1 scored even
higher than the PC
Specialist Vortex S2
(Shopper379) and its
Intel Core i7-9700F,
while also coming
close to its overall
score of 278. That’s
avery convincing
performance by the
Ryzen 53600X,
showing all of the Ryzen
family’s characteristic
multithreading
capability while
PCSPECIALIST InfernoR1
★★★★★
£1,199•From http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk
VERDICT
Brand-newcomponentsempowertheInfernoR1with
premium-gradeperformance,withouttheexpense
DESKTOPGAMING PC
demonstrating that even its
mid-range chips can beat Intel’s
higher-end CPUs on the latter’s
home turf of single-core power.
In this particular system, the
Ryzen 53600X comes running at
stock speeds, but it’s unlocked for
overclocking. The inclusion of the
all-in-one watercooler helps make
this aviable possibility,although
when it comes to home use there’s
not much that the CPU won’t be
able to handle with stock speeds.
This is aPCyou could quitehappily
use forediting photos and videos,
or streaming while playing games.
OPEN UP
Speaking of which, that newfound
single-core proficiency can be a
big help in certain games. Dirt
Showdown is aperfect example:
it’s heavily CPU-dependent, which
can cause bottlenecking on more
powerful GPUs and prevent them from
reaching their full
performance potential.
There’s not awhiff of
this happening on the
Inferno R1: with Ultra
quality and 4x MSAA,
it produced 190fps at
1,920x1,080, 164fps at
2,560x1,440 and 94fps
at 3,840x2,160. If you
don’t pair aPCsuch as
this with a144Hz
monitor (or higher),
you’re missing out.
Of course,credit
also goes to the RTX
2060 Super.Onpaper,
it’s asurprisingly
radical overhaul of the
standard RTX2060:
the CUDAcore
processor count goes
up from 1,920 to 2,176,
and the amount of
GDDR6 memory rises
from 6GB to 8GB, the
same specification as
most of Nvidia’s
high-end GPUs. As
there’s also an RTX
2070 Super,we
suspect this was to
bridge the gap between the RTX2060 and
last year’s RTX2070 (Shopper373).
Admittedly,the actual effect of these
changes is minor: most of our benchmarks
saw improvements of 10fps or lower
compared to what the RTX2060 Founders
Edition managed in our test PC. Then again,
that doesn’t make it any less of awonderfully
capable gaming system forthe price.Even in
Metro: Last Light Redux, which heavily
punishes GPU weaknesses, the Inferno R1
had fewproblems getting to 89fps at
1,920x1,080 and 53fps at 2,560x1,440. Using
the same combination of maxed-out settings
was alittle toomuch to ask at 3,840x2,160,
with the Inferno R1 dropping to 26fps,
although turning off SSAA was enough forit
to shoot right back up to 48fps.
Interestingly,all these results are either
roughly equal to or clearly ahead of those of
the Chillblast Fusion Ryzen 7RTX 2070
(Shopper377). That PC is one of the best
we’ve tested this year,but even though it’s
£160 more expensive and has –asthe name
implies –anRTX 2070, the Inferno R1 is just
as good forgaming. Both systems received
the same SteamVR Performance Test score
as well, with 11 out of 11.
HIT REFRESH
We’re planning astandalone review to see
whether the RTX2060 Super will be a
worthwhile upgrade forhome PC builders, but
fornow we’re happytosee it doing so well in
